


A New World

by ZVArmy



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 02:14:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11819085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZVArmy/pseuds/ZVArmy
Summary: Olivia Ramsey has been hired as an actress by WWE thanks to her friendship with Stephanie McMahon. The role she will play is an investor who is now on the WWE board of directors, who has now come to Raw as an authority figure. Her first act is to recruit the team of Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose. Could this lead to something between Seth and Olivia off-screen as well?





	1. Chapter 1

Walking through a backstage area full of wrestlers had Olivia Ramsey feeling nervous - an emotion that she wasn't used to experiencing all that often. It was the only aspect of starting her new job that she hadn't been looking forward to, despite the assurances that her friend Stephanie McMahon had given her that the guys, as she had referred to them, would be fine. Stephanie had originally been friends with Olivia's older sister back in her university days, which had then seen her also form a friendship with Olivia over the years as the sisters were very close.

When Olivia's promising career as an actress had started to go astray, largely thanks to some poor decisions regarding what roles to take on, she had been unsure what she wanted to do next. The decision had been whether it was a good idea to persevere and hope for a better role to come along from somewhere, or to she start looking at options for a new way to earn a living.

That was when Stephanie had proposed the idea of signing for WWE, not as a wrestler, but as an actress. The offer made sense as Olivia was slim and athletic, but was nowhere near physically imposing enough to throw other people around a ring. In any case, she would not have had an interest in learning to wrestle. But acting out a role on a wrestling show was a different matter, and once Hunter had pitched what they had in mind, she had been convinced enough to accept the offer. The amount of travel that working full time for WWE entailed certainly wasn't something to look forward to, but to offset that, the amount of money she was being paid was more than generous, at least in Olivia's opinion.

Once she had signed a contract, WWE had started to put creative plans in motion for her eventual debut. Now, a couple of months later, that moment was close at hand. Later in the night, the much talked about mystery person who had invested in WWE in return for a place on the board of directors was going to debut on Monday Night Raw. That was all the information Olivia had so far. She assumed that was at least in part the reason why Stephanie had sent a text earlier in the day, asking her to come to the production office when she got to the arena.

Olivia had taken a passing interest in WWE over the years, mainly because her friend was one of the owners of the company. For that reason, she knew enough to put names to some of the most recognisable faces she had seen since arriving at the arena. The same could not be said in return of course, and she had noticed more than one of the guys allowing their eyes to linger on her for longer than they should have as she walked along the hallway. She supposed the sight of an unfamiliar attractive young blonde woman in a business suit walking around the place was enough to start them on what she imagined was the usual childish locker room banter they would partake in. Luckily, the women she had been assigned to share a locker room with had at least been welcoming. Bayley and Sasha, she reminded herself, thankful that her usual terrible memory for names hadn't erased those two as yet.

As she was thinking about her somewhat haphazard memory, Olivia realised that it had indeed let her down in another respect. She had forgotten the directions that Sasha had given her to find the production office. She had managed the left at the end of the first hallway, past the bathrooms and catering, but then what? Had it been left or right? "Damn it," she sighed, facing up to the fact that she was going to have to ask one of the unfamiliar people that were bustling around the place in all directions - crew members, most of them, dressed in WWE logo T-shirts. She would never have imagined it took so many people and so much chaos to put on a wrestling show.

"Help you, sweetheart?" a male voice asked from behind her.

Olivia turned around, resisting the temptation to react negatively to being called sweetheart. Having an argument with a colleague on day one wasn't going to be a good start. She recognised the man who had spoken as Dean Ambrose, and next to him was Seth Rollins, who she noticed immediately looked even better in person than he did on TV. Those kind of thoughts could go out of the window right away, she told herself sternly. "I'm, uh, looking for the production office," she said a little nervously.

"Then you're in luck," Seth said. "We're on our way there now ourselves. It's just along the hallway here." He pointed to the left.

Left, past the bathrooms and catering, then left. Now Olivia could remember Sasha saying it quite clearly.

Dean looked her up and down, then nonchalantly asked, "You the chick who's playing the new investor character?"

"That's me," Olivia confirmed, a lot more politely than she felt like being.

"Then I think you're our new manager," Seth announced as he resumed walking along the hallway, leading the way.

"Sorry, what?" Olivia asked. She had no idea that the word manager meant something different in wrestling terminology.

"Well, not really our manager," Dean said. "It's more like we're your team."

"Oh, I see," Olivia said as the pieces fell into place, or so she thought. "I'm the boss, and I've hired you to do my dirty work or something? Is that what you mean?"

"I think that might be the kind of thing they're thinking of," Seth said patiently, looking at Dean out of the corner of his eye with an expression that said, 'What the fuck have they landed us with here?' His first impression of the new arrival was that she was a bimbo. A great looking blonde chick who seemed as dumb as a box of rocks could hardly have been more fitting of the description.

"Here's the production office," Dean announced a moment later. He at least had the manners to gesture for the woman to go in ahead of him.

"Olivia!" Stephanie exclaimed when she saw her friend, getting up from her leather office chair and walking over towards her. "Welcome, at last. Wow, you look amazing!"

"Thanks, Steph," Olivia said happily, accepting the hug offered by the woman who was now her boss as well as her friend. Hunter was also in the room, and had stood up, ready to deliver his own greeting.

"You know each other?" Dean asked from over by the door, unable to keep his mouth shut. What he had just seen had not been the typical greeting for a new employee, even he could figure that out.

"For many years," Stephanie confirmed with a smile. "I've known Olivia's sister since we were at Boston University together."

Olivia, Seth thought, realising that he hadn't introduced himself to the woman. The name suited her, he decided.

After exchanging his own greeting with Olivia, Hunter said, "So you guys have met. That saves me handling the introductions at least."

"Actually, not so much," Olivia said, smiling shyly. "We just bumped into each other outside. We've not been introduced or anything."

"Oh, okay," Hunter said. "Olivia Ramsey, meet Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose." He gestured to each of the men in turn as he introduced them.

"Hey," Dean said simply.

"Nice to meet you," Seth said more politely.

"Nice to meet you, too," Olivia said to both of them.

Stephanie was still admiring Olivia, seeing her dressed in a business suit for the first time. "You really look the part," she announced.

"Thanks," Olivia smiled, genuinely appreciating the vote of confidence. "So, uh, the guys were just saying they think we're going to be on the same team? Or they're my team, I should say."

"That's right," Hunter said. "What we've decided to do is put two of our top guys with you, with the thinking being that having them there will help you to ease into the role, rather than throwing you out there by yourself right from the start."

"That sounds like a good idea," Olivia said appreciatively. Acting in front of a camera was second nature to her, but standing in the middle of an arena full of ten thousand people was going to be another thing altogether. It wasn't that she didn't have confidence in her ability, it was just that it was bound to be an unnerving experience for anyone the first time they had to do it.

"How exactly is that going to work?" Dean asked. "What I mean is, how do we team up with her?"

Hunter raised an eyebrow slightly at the use of the word her in place of Olivia's name, but didn't go as far as saying anything about it. "What's going to happen is, we'll have Renee walk out into the parking garage, where we'll see some random guy in a suit standing there waiting. Renee will say something like, 'Excuse me, I've been told you're waiting for arrival of the new investor we've heard so much about. Is that true?' The man in the suit will say, 'Yes, Ms Ramsey will be here soon, and she will address any questions you might have if she sees fit.' That will put Renee in her place until we show a limo pulling in, which you will get out of, Olivia. That's when the audience will get their first look at our latest authority figure. We'll have the guy welcome you and follow you around like he's some kind of PA or something."

"I'm loving the sound of this already," Olivia said excitedly, picturing the scene that Hunter was describing.

"Then, later in show," Hunter went on, "You'll have a backstage interview with Renee. I'll give you a copy of the script in a minute so you can see what we need you to say. Basically it'll involve you telling everyone on the roster that you're looking for someone to stand out and impress you by the end of the night; that whoever does so will find it's in their best interests."

"And that's where we come in," Seth surmised. He and Dean had been teaming together for a while, working as heels.

"You got it," Hunter confirmed. "There will be another interview segment where we have Braun Strowman challenging Roman to a match, saying he wants to be the one to prove himself to Ms Ramsey, and what better way to do it than to take out 'The Big Dog?' That match will be the main event, and the two of you will come through the crowd and interfere in it, firstly by attacking Braun. I'm sure that will get some people thinking we're seeing a Shield reunion, but you'll also take out Roman. After leaving them both lying, you'll leave the ring. That's when Olivia will come out, making it plain that she's impressed with what you've just done. And there you have it, the alliance is formed. Any questions?"

Seth and Dean glanced at each other. "Nope, no questions," Dean answered. He would rather not have team with this new woman if he could have helped it, but he hadn't been given a choice in that regard, so he had to get on with it.

"Okay, the two of you can go," Hunter said to Seth and Dean.

Before heading for the door, Seth looked at Olivia. "When you're done here, you can come and join us for a coffee in catering if you like. If not, that's cool too, but the offer is there."

Olivia didn't need to consider her answer. At least one of her new partners, if that was the right word, seemed to want to make an effort to get to know her. She was smart enough to know that she would need friends other than Hunter and Stephanie if she was going to enjoy the job in the long term, especially as she was contracted to work house shows, when the bosses wouldn't even be there. "I'll come and find you," she said with a smile.

After the door had closed behind the two men, Olivia looked at Stephanie and said, "I don't think Dean likes me."

"It's not that he doesn't like you, he's just like that. You'll get used to him," Stephanie said pleasantly.

With that, Hunter moved on to presenting Olivia with her copy of the script and describing to her in more detail exactly what the procedures were regarding the few short scenes that she had to film for that night's show.

* * *

After they had walked out of the office, Dean had immediately shook his head at Seth.

"What?" Seth asked defiantly.

"Come and have a coffee with us," Dean mocked in an effeminate voice. "Honestly, you're like a dog in heat sometimes."

"I just want to get to know her a bit, and for her to get to know us. We're going to be working together, Dean, it's the logical thing to do."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's what you were thinking," Dean said sarcastically.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Seth demanded as they walked into the busy catering area.

"Give me a break," Dean said. "She's exactly your type. Blonde, good looking, dress size twelve, IQ about the same."

Seth had to have a good laugh at the way that was phrased before he could say anything else. "That's an awful thing to say," he managed eventually when they joined the back of the line. "We don't know anything about the girl and you've already decided what you think of her."

"The first impression didn't give me much confidence, let's just put it that way," Dean said.

"Yeah, well, I'm going to wait and see if she comes and joins us before I decide anything about her."

* * *

When she left the production office ten minutes later, Olivia felt a lot more confident about her new job. It had to be Hunter who had been thoughtful enough to give her a debut appearance in front of the audience without any lines to deliver. At least that way she would get some first hand of experience of what an arena full of people looked and felt like when you were the centre of attention, without also having the pressure of remembering lines on her mind.

The next item on her agenda was to meet up with her two new teammates for coffee. She found herself thinking that she would have preferred it be just her and Seth, since she wasn't getting positive vibes from Dean, but then she cautioned herself not to judge people before she'd had a chance to get to know them. After all, Stephanie hadn't shown any concerns about having her working with Ambrose. Maybe a chat would help to break the ice. One thing was for sure: she had a couple of things that she could tell them about her life and her hobbies that they definitely wouldn't be expecting, not if they thought she was just some boring run of the mill actress who had happened to land a job at WWE because she knew Stephanie McMahon.

Walking into catering, she stopped for a moment in the doorway, taking in how busy the large room was. It took her a moment to locate Seth and Dean at a table, which she happened to do right as Seth raised a hand to signal her. She was sure she saw Dean rolling his eyes. "They think I'm a real dumbass," she muttered to herself, annoyed by the realisation. She started walking over towards their table. "Okay, guys. Let me prove you wrong."


	2. Chapter 2

Unfortunately for Olivia, her plan to prove to Dean and Seth that she wasn't the idiot they seemed to think she was didn't get off to the best of starts. When Seth had raised his hand to signal to her where they were sitting, she had walked straight over to their table, only realising when she got there that she was supposed to have gotten herself a drink first.

"The line is over there," Dean said politely, pointing to the four or five people who were waiting to get themselves a hot beverage. He was actually so polite about it that she knew he was being condescending. Whether he had meant her to or not, she actually did feel like an idiot at that moment.

"I'll be right back," she said hurriedly, turning her back before they had the chance to see her cheeks reddening.

"Dude, that wasn't cool," Seth said over the top of his coffee cup. "I think you actually upset her."

"She ain't getting far in this business if that kind of thing upsets her," Dean replied matter of fact. "And anyway, don't blame me because she came over here without a drink. Like I said, dress size twelve, IQ about the same."

If Olivia hadn't been assigned to work with them, Seth would have been more willing to join in with making jokes at her expense, but since she was going to be their manager of sorts, he knew they were going to have to get along. He also had to assume that nerves were at least partially the reason she was coming across as a bit ditsy so far. After all, Stephanie and Hunter had to have faith in her ability to perform in the role they had hired her to perform, else she wouldn't have been signed by WWE to begin with, whether she was a personal friend or not. Yes, he thought, WWE was a family business, but not to the kind of crazy extent where the McMahon's would hire talentless people just because they happened to know them. So, he endeavored to find out, what talents did Olivia Ramsey bring to the table?

"Maybe we'll find out it's all a rib?" Dean pondered. "They've not hired her at all; they just wanted to see how we'd react to it."

"Seriously, let's give her a break," Seth said. Looking over at Olivia in the drinks line, he could see that she didn't feel comfortable enough to strike up a conversation with anyone else around her.

"Alright, alright," Dean conceded, making it sound like it was a Herculean effort. At least partially, some of the comments he had been making had been an attempt to wind Seth up rather than to insult Olivia. Knowing his close friend as well as he did, he knew that she was exactly the kind of girl he went for. That alone offered a lot of possibilities for getting under Seth's skin; a constant mission for him. Getting reactions from each other had always been a mainstay of their friendship.

A couple of minutes later, Olivia returned to the table, now with a cup of coffee in had. "Sorry about that," she said, sitting down opposite Seth.

"Nothing to apologise for," Seth said kindly. "You seem a little nervous. I can understand why when you're starting on Raw not knowing anyone at all in the business, but there's really no need to be. Most people on the roster are nice people. You'll get along with everyone just fine once they get to know you."

"One of the biggest concerns I have is that no one will think I deserve to be here," Olivia admitted with an amount of honesty that Seth appreciated.

"Why do you deserve to be here?" Dean asked bluntly, making Seth close his eyes for a second. "I mean, other than the fact Stephanie was at university with your sister, or whatever the story was."

Olivia decided she had to change tack with this Ambrose guy. She wasn't going to get any leeway from him by being nervous or humble; he wanted to see if she had any backbone or substance behind her good looks. Fair enough, she decided. "I'm a good actress," she said speaking more firmly than she had at any point so far. "I made a couple of poor choices, taking on roles that I shouldn't have, and my career was stalling as a result. I'm better than that. Luckily, and yes I know I'm lucky, Stephanie knows what I can do and made it possible for me to get a job here. Whether you think I deserve to be here based on that is your decision, I guess."

For the first time, Dean saw something he was able to respect a little. The girl had the courage to stand up for herself in the face of criticism at least. Inwardly, he decided to do what Seth had asked and give her a bit of a break. After all, first day nerves were a thing for anyone starting a new job. "Tell us a bit about yourself," he instructed in a slightly more pleasant tone. "I hear Boston in your accent."

"Right," Olivia confirmed. "That's where I was born and raised, and where I went to University, as did my sister. She's ten years older me, the same age as Steph. They met there and became best friends, if you believe best friends are a thing. Either way, they were inseparable for their last couple of years there, and have remained friends ever since. That's how I ended up being friends with her, too, obviously..."

Seth raised a hand, smiling politely as he stopped her babbling. "We'd like to know about you, not Stephanie," he prompted. "You went to Boston University, you said. I assume you studied acting?"

"No. I have a degree in marine biology," Olivia said, as if it was an unsurprising thing to announce.

"Marine biology?" Dean asked, frowning in confusion. "You're an actress, but you didn't study acting. You studied fish?"

"I didn't study acting at university, no," Olivia said. "Acting was my hobby back then, not what I wanted to do for a job. I spent almost as much time at acting classes though," she chuckled. Realising she was speaking quickly again, she took a moment to have a drink.

Pleased that his intuition about Olivia not being a bimbo seemed to be correct, Seth said, "Marine biology must be really interesting. It must have been a shame to give that up, even if you do like acting?"

Olivia smiled. "I didn't give it up. I have a place in Oahu now, that's Hawaii," she added unnecessarily. "Whenever I'm home, I'm either scuba diving or freediving. I do it literally every day, when I can. Basically, I changed acting to my job and diving to my hobby."

Finally there was something Dean could relate to. He had tried scuba diving himself a year or so earlier and had thoroughly enjoyed it. "I can understand that," he said. "I tried scuba myself in Australia when we were down there on a tour one time. There's something really peaceful about it that's hard to describe."

"Exactly," Olivia said, happy to have something in common with the man who hadn't exactly been kind or welcoming to her so far.

"There must be a lot of cool stuff to see in the water in Hawaii?" Seth ventured. Having never dived himself, he was working from imagination.

"Great white sharks are what I mainly dive with," Olivia reported, expecting that to impress them.

"Oh, in one of those cages?" Dean asked.

"Oh, no," Olivia quickly said, disappointed that he had gotten the wrong end of the stick. "I just swim with them. As long as you know what you're doing, they're very gentle creatures."

"Wait," Seth said after nearly spitting out a mouthful of coffee; a reaction that Olivia loved, not that she allowed herself to show it. "You're saying you just swim in the sea, with great white sharks? Are you mad?" He genuinely wasn't sure if she was spinning him a line, although she seemed perfectly serious about it.

Olivia had a good laugh at that. It was the kind of reaction she was used to getting when she told people about her hobby for the first time. The problem was that most people thought shark, then thought of the movie Jaws. While a shark going around eating people like they were going out of fashion might have pulled in the numbers at the box office, it was a wildly inaccurate representation of what those incredible, majestic creatures were really like, so long as you knew how to behave around them. She could have started getting scientific about it, but judging by the expressions on the faces in front of her, there was an unmissable opportunity to have more fun with her new colleagues.

"They're beautiful, gentle things," she said easily, stringing them along masterfully. They hadn't even realised that she had now started using her abilities as an actress, even though she believed the words she was saying. And in their lack of realisation that she was now acting, they missed their first chance to notice that she was actually good at it. "All you have to do is show them some respect, and they're more than happy to share the water with you," she advised them.

"How many times have you swam with a great white?" Dean asked, making sure to keep an air of suspicion in his tone as he wondered if she was really serious about what she was telling them.

"Loads of times," Olivia shrugged. "I've lived in Oahu for more than three years now, so I couldn't even try and give you a number."

"And you've never been bitten?" he asked next.

It didn't escape Olivia that he'd soon changed his tune with his eye rolling and quips designed to make her feel stupid now that he'd found out that she had a university degree. That was what he got for judging a book by its cover. Not all attractive blondes had air between their ears. "Never," she confirmed, in answer to his question. Taking her phone out of her pocket, she pulled up the Instagram app and selected a video that was only just over a week old. She held her phone out to Dean. As he took it, she said, "This is from last week. It's me cutting some fishing wire off of a female great white. She was very appreciative."

Dean took the phone and played the video. The way he sat there with his mouth slightly open while he watched it was possibly the most satisfying moment of her day so far. Without comment, Dean handed the phone to Seth so that he could watch it and took a hit from his coffee cup. He wasn't about to say as much, but Dean had found some respect for this Olivia woman. Whether she had any talent relevant to her job with WWE or not, she most definitely had guts. Looking a great white shark in the eye from a couple of feet away was not something he would have been able to do, that was for sure.

Taking the phone from his friend, Seth touched the screen to make the video start again. Understandably, the first thing his eye took in was the enormous fish with its mouth open, revealing a ridiculous amount of razor sharp teeth. He guessed that the shark had to be fifteen feet long. How anyone could consider coming within a mile of that thing was a mystery to him, let alone actively enjoying being in close contact with it. Then his attention turned to the woman swimming slowly along beside it, working cutting away a whole bunch of fishing wire which had somehow gotten tangled around its fin.

Apparently freediving meant not using any gear, Seth saw. Olivia was wearing a black scuba mask, black fins and a dark blue bikini, and that was all. That fact provided him with the knowledge she had a very athletic, nubile body hidden away under that business suit. He felt something stirring inside him as he watched the video, now transfixed on the diver, not the shark. The way she moved so gracefully through the water had him in rapt attention. As she finished cutting the fishing wire away from the shark, it swam powerfully away, leaving Olivia to give an excited double thumbs up to whoever had been filming the event for her. The video froze abruptly, having reached the end.

"That's incredible," Seth said softly, handing the phone back over.

While he had been watching it, an idea had occurred to Olivia. She had walked into the room to find at least one of them thinking she was brain-dead, yet now she had them pretty much speechless. It would probably make a more lasting impression if she walked away and left them that way. Downing what was left in her coffee cup, she took the phone and said, "Thanks. I'm going to had back to the locker room now. Bayley was kind enough to offer to go over my script with me. I'll catch you later, guys. With that and a polite smile, she rose and walked away.

"Well, shit," was Dean's verdict after she was out of earshot. "I don't know if she can act, but she has balls."

Seth chuckled at his friend's poor ability to judge character. "Yep, and she's got a degree, so I don't think she has an IQ of twelve, either. I think that's more likely to be yours."

"Bullshit," Dean said, feigning offense. "Mine is at least thirty."

Although he laughed at the joke, Seth had something else on his mind. He couldn't get the image of Olivia in the video out of his head, picturing over and over how she moved through the water, topped off with the double thumbs up to the camera. He couldn't even have described exactly what was so attractive about that image, but he knew he wouldn't easily have been able to forget it, even if he had wanted to. Not that he did want to.


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey, how did it go?" Bayley asked when Olivia walked back into their locker room.

"I managed to forget the directions you guys gave me on the way to the office," Olivia admitted with a self-depreciating smile. "I've always had a hopeless memory for things like that, and for people's names and stuff. Yet I'm good at remembering lines. It's weird."

"You'd be a pretty crappy actress if you couldn't remember lines," Sasha chuckled from where she was sitting in the corner of the room. She hadn't looked up from her phone to deliver the joke.

Ignoring the comment, Bayley said, "But you must have found your way there. So, how did it go?"

"I bumped into Seth and Dean," Olivia said. "It turned out they were on the way to see Hunter and Steph as well. We went in there and found out that we're going to be on a team together. Like, I'm their manager."

"That's awesome," Bayley said enthusiastically. "They make such a great team. They have real chemistry in the ring together, you know?"

"Right," Olivia agreed, managing to hide the fact that she hadn't got a clue about chemistry in the ring; another reminder that she had a lot to learn on this job, and she was going to need to learn it quickly. "Seth seems like quite a nice guy," she ventured. "But Dean seems like a bit of a prick. At least, he did at first."

"That's just Dean," Sasha chipped in, still paying more attention to her phone than to the conversation. "You'll soon get used to him. He's not a bad guy at all when you know how to take the things he says to you."

Olivia walked over and sat down on another of the steel chairs, while Bayley took a seat on the bench that ran along the back wall. "Seth invited me to have a coffee with them," Olivia announced. "I accepted, thinking that it would be a good idea to try and get to know them. I could tell they were thinking I was dumb because of how I couldn't find the production office and stuff. I do get flustered, and see how that might come over as me being stupid. Dean was being pretty rude to me at one point, so I decided to go on the front foot and prove them wrong."

"Oh?" Bayley inquired, grinning.

With a smile of her own, Olivia said, "Let's just say they didn't expect me to have a degree in marine biology to my name."

Bayley chuckled. "I bet Dean's face was a picture when you told him that. That's awesome though, marine biology. I'd love to know more about that kind of thing."

For the first time since Olivia had walked back into the room, Sasha looked up from her phone. "Why are you an actress if you have a degree in marine biology?" she asked. "I mean, a degree is a big thing to do nothing with."

On the face of it, it was a good question and a valid point, and Olivia didn't have a particularly good answer, other than that was how her life had panned out. "I don't know really," she shrugged. "Acting was always my hobby while I was at university. Well, before that to be honest. After I finished my degree, I managed to land myself a small role in a single episode of a TV show and I really loved it. That's what convinced me to make my living as an actress. The problem is, after getting off to a promising start, I've kind of stalled lately. I've been to a few auditions and didn't get anything, which was really demoralising. I was thinking about giving it up and maybe starting my own business, but then Stephanie mentioned there might be an opportunity to come and work for WWE. I thought why not, let's give it a try, so here I am."

"What business were you thinking of starting?" Bayley asked, enjoying talking to her new colleague. Olivia was friendly and open in conversation. A good judge of character, Bayley could tell that she was someone who it would be easy to get along with.

"I was thinking about becoming a scuba instructor and running a dive boat," Olivia said. "I live in Hawaii, so there's plenty of business there that I could have tried to attract."

"Oh, I've always wanted to try diving," Bayley said, her enthusiasm coming close to bubbling over.

"Now you've started her off," Sasha said, rolling her eyes theatrically.

"What?" Bayley protested loudly, holding her hands up to express innocence. "It's true, I've always wanted to try it. It's just been one of those things I've never gotten around to actually doing."

Olivia liked Bayley a lot already, finding her to be a happy, excitable and kind person. They were just the qualities that she had always looked for in friends. Knowing that she would need friends in the locker room and on the road, she could see no better idea than to try and form a friendship with her new locker room buddy. For that reason, she decided to extend an offer. "We could dive together at some point, if you wanted to. I'm a qualified dive master, so I can teach you the basics and dive with you without us needing any other supervision."

"Really? That would be truly amazing, thank you," Bayley said, beaming from ear to ear.

Standing up and heading for the door, Sasha said, "I'll leave you to it. I've got to speak to Alexa about our match."

"Okay, see you later," Bayley said, while Olivia just smiled politely. She wasn't getting the same friendship instinct towards Sasha, even though she hadn't said or done anything that had been in any way unpleasant.

"Bayley, I want to thank you," Olivia said once they had the room to themselves.

"Thank me? What for?" Bayley asked.

"Being so welcoming today. I've been nervous these past few days. I knew I'd end up having to share a locker room with some other women, and I had no idea what they'd be like. I thought I might end up with people who didn't like me because I wasn't a wrestler and they'd give me a hard time. But you've been really kind and welcoming. So like I said, thank you."

Smiling, Bayley realised that she could see similarities between Olivia and herself. Thinking back to when she had first started out at NXT, she had also felt nervous about the reaction she might get, wondering if people would consider her worthy of the opportunity she had been given. "It's nothing," she said easily. "I know Hunter and Steph wouldn't have hired you if you didn't have the talent for the job, and you've been really nice ever since I met you earlier." Bayley paused for a moment as an idea struck her. "Hey, who are you planning to travel with?"

"No one," Olivia said, surprised by the question. "I mean, Steph's the only one I really know here, and I'm obviously not going to be traveling to the, uh, smaller shows with her."

"We call the smaller shows house shows," Bayley helped out, getting a serious nod in response as Olivia took in the information. "I was just thinking that no one likes traveling alone; it's the absolute worst. I know we don't know each other well yet, but you're welcome to travel with me if you like."

"Really?" Olivia asked, her face lighting up at the generous offer. "I'd really like that, thank you."

"You're welcome," Bayley said. "Although I should be clear, I also travel with Seth and Cesaro, so it would be the four of us."

Olivia felt her heart sinking, doubting that the two guys would want to share a car with her of all people. "Shouldn't you ask them?" she asked quietly.

"I will, but they'll be fine about it," Bayley assured her. "Seth and Cesaro are two of the nicest people on the Raw roster. Honestly, you'll get along with them just fine."

"If you're sure," Olivia said uncertainly. "I don't want to feel like I'm imposing on you guys and making everyone feel awkward."

"Not at all, trust me," Bayley said. "I'll talk to them about it later, but I don't doubt that it'll be fine. Obviously you'll have to put in a share towards the costs of hire cars, gas and stuff like that."

Olivia nodded. "Of course. That wouldn't be a problem at all. Hey, why don't Seth and Dean travel together? I assumed people who are partners would travel with each other?"

"Sometimes it goes like that, but not always. In this case, Dean travels with Renee. You know who Renee Young is, right?"

"Sure," Olivia was able to say, thankful that she didn't have to embarrass herself by giving the opposite reply. She already seriously regretted not doing a lot more research into the company she now worked for. In retrospect, it had been really stupid not to have done so.

"Renee is Dean's wife, so they travel together," Bayley revealed.

"Okay, got it," Olivia said.

The conversation then moved on to Bayley talking about her home life and her fiancee. While they talked, Olivia found herself thinking that traveling with Bayley and Seth would be a good idea for more reasons than hopefully having friendly people to spend the countless hours on the road with. It would also be an opportunity to get to know one of the people she was working with on-screen. Bayley seemed to believe that Seth was a nice guy, and he had definitely been more pleasant to her than Dean had so far.

Then there was the fact that she found Seth incredibly attractive. From what she had seen on TV, she had been able to tell that he had one hell of a body, and she had always had a thing for dark haired men with beards. She was about to tell herself not to think about one of her colleagues like that, thinking that nothing good ever came of romantic or sexual encounters in the workplace, but then she considered Hunter and Stephanie. If anything could dismiss that line of thinking, it was their successful marriage. Even so, she thought, it wasn't a good idea to think about someone she had only just met in those kinds of terms. Hell, Seth could be gay for all she knew. Time would tell, she was sure, if they were going to travel together.

* * *

"Hey," Seth said to Bayley when they saw each other in a hallway later in the evening. There wasn't long to go before Raw went on air, meaning that the backstage areas were now a hive of activity as everyone from crew members to the wrestlers themselves made their final preparations for the show.

"Hey, Seth," Bayley smiled warmly. "Quickly, while you're here, I had an idea I wanted to run by you."

"Shoot," Seth said pleasantly.

"I was talking with Olivia earlier after you had coffee with her. She seems really nice."

"Yeah," Seth nodded, considering the point. "At first she came across a bit, uh, scatterbrained I guess I'm going to say. But once we sat down with her and had a chat, I actually kind of liked her." Plus she's insanely hot, he didn't add, picturing the underwater video again. He literally could not get the image of how her athletic body moved so gracefully through the water out of his head.

"That's good," Bayley said. "Because the idea I had was that she could travel with the three of us. She doesn't know anyone, so she's looking at traveling alone at the moment. We both know how lonely and horrible that can be. I'd feel bad if I left her to do that, wouldn't you?"

Seth hadn't considered the idea until that moment, and felt like he was put on the spot a little. But then, he reasoned, there was no reason to say no. Olivia did seem like a nice girl, and there would be nothing wrong with having more time to get to know her since they were going to be working so closely together. "Alright, no worries," he decided. Aside from anything else, he wasn't cold enough to say no to someone in need of company like Olivia would be while she settled into her new job. "I'll talk to Cesaro about it if you like. I'm on the way back to the locker room now anyway, so assuming he's in there..."

"Would you? Thanks, I know Olivia will really appreciate us trying to make her feel welcome. Apparently Dean was a little rough with her earlier."

"Yeah, you know Dean," Seth shrugged, then it was time for them both to get on. "I'll catch you later."

"Yep," Bayley smiled.

As he continued his journey back to the locker room, Seth had the underwater video replaying in his mind again. "What the hell did that girl do to me?" he chuckled to himself, thinking that it was a shame he had met her at work rather than in a bar somewhere. Had that been the case, he would definitely have made a move. But as it was, he couldn't allow himself to think that way about her. She was a colleague, not someone he could have a casual sexual encounter with because he happened to like the way she looked. Besides, he reasoned, she might be gay for all he knew. There was no way he could know that the woman in question had been having very similar thoughts about him too.

Sure enough, Cesaro was in the locker room, dressed in his ring gear, when Seth entered. He was clearly about to leave, probably to meet up with his partner Sheamus.

"I met the girl who's playing the mystery investor character," Seth announced. "Her name's Olivia. And the rumours were right, she's managing Dean and I."

"Like we expected," Cesaro agreed. "What's she like?"

"She seems nice," Seth said. "She's sharing a locker room with Bay, and she likes her. Actually, Bay invited her to travel with us, since she doesn't know anyone else. I said I was okay with it but I'd have to ask you. It would be a good idea for me to be able to get to know her a bit more," he added.

"The more the merrier as far as I'm concerned," Cesaro said. He was a lot like Bayley in the fact that he could easily get along with just about anyone. In a more conspiratorial tone he asked, "Is she hot then, or not? How old do you think she is?"

"She said she's ten years younger than Steph; they're friends," Seth explained. "So that makes her, what, thirty? And yeah, she's hot. She showed me a video of her freediving, and she looks great in a bikini, I can tell you that much. Oh, speaking of, guess what she does for a hobby? It's literally the craziest shit."

"She watches TNA?" Cesaro guessed.

Seth laughed. "No one's that crazy, bro. But Olivia's close. She dives with great white sharks, for fun."

"She what?" Cesaro asked incredulously.

"You heard me right," Seth said. "She proved it, too. Like I said, she showed me a video on her Instagram." And I can't stop thinking about it, he thought after finishing the sentence.

"I have to see that," Cesaro said, walking over to his locker and opening it up. He took out his phone and asked, "Do you know her last name?"

"Yeah," Seth said, walking over to join his friend. Now that the idea had been put out there, he realised that he could check out the sexy video again himself, and any others that might be on her account. "Put in Olivia Ramsey," he instructed. "You'll have to try an a or an e at the end, I don't know how you spell it."

Cesaro tried the incorrect spelling first, unsurprisingly finding no likely accounts. The second spelling did the trick straight away.

"There she is," Seth said, pointing at the correct avatar icon on the list, as if the username wasn't enough of a giveaway.

"She chose Shark Girl Olivia as her username," Cesaro chuckled, thinking that it sounded silly.

"I'm not surprised, she loves the damn things," Seth said as Cesaro loaded up Olivia's page. He had to scroll past a few photos to find the video Seth had hyped up.

"That's the one, I think," Seth said.

Cesaro loaded up the video and watched a sexy blonde girl in a bikini cutting something off the fin of an enormous great white shark. "That's badass," he said, genuinely impressed.

Beside him, Seth was engrossed in the video again, so much so that Cesaro noticed. "Earth to Seth," he said with a big grin on his face. "You can stop drooling now."

"Huh?" Seth said, realising that he had been busted. "I was watching the shark, dude."

"Uh huh, sure you were," Cesaro said, making it plain that the lame excuse didn't have a chance of working.

"Alright, I think she's hot as hell, okay?" Seth admitted in frustration. At least he knew he could trust Cesaro to keep it between the two of them.

"Of course you do," Cesaro sighed deeply, managing not to laugh as he put his phone back in his locker. "Anyone blonde and mildly attractive ticks your boxes."

Seth just shook his head wearily at the jibe. It was all in the name of good fun, but the problem he had was that he knew it was more than that when it came to Olivia. Sure, she was blonde, good looking and had a fit, athletic body, but that was only a part of it with this girl. She also had a strange combination of nervousness, as evidenced when they had first met, and fearless, as shown when she swam side by side with a giant fish that could bite her clean in half without thinking twice about it. The combination of all of those things was incredibly alluring to him.

"If she's going to travel with us, buy her dinner," Cesaro said, actually trying to help this time. He could tell that, joking aside, Seth really had taken a liking to Olivia Ramsey. "The worst that can happen is you get to know each other better, and who knows what else might happen."

"You know, that's not a bad idea," Seth decided. He wouldn't do it that night - not on the first night he worked with her. But the following night, when they were looking at the prospect of a night in a hotel after a house show, he would offer to buy Olivia dinner.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: I've unbanned the Curb Stomp, since it never should have been banned by WWE to start with._

* * *

"What a war this has been," Michael Cole said. For once, he wasn't exaggerating too severely. Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman had been tearing each other apart for almost ten minutes in Raw's main event, after Strowman had stated his intention to impress WWE's new investor, who had shown up earlier in the night and said that she was looking for someone to do exactly that.

Taking out Reigns had been the intended method of impressing her, but it wasn't proving to be that easy for Strowman, who had just rolled out of the ring after taking a thunderous spear from his opponent.

"You're right, Michael," Booker T said. "Reigns might have had the match won there, but he's down and unable to capitalise."

"And Strowman ended up on the outside anyway," Graves pointed out as the camera shot changed to show exactly that. Strowman was making a great effort of lifting himself from the floor, but then, seemingly from nowhere someone appeared and started laying stiff kicks into his side. Boos from the crowd greeted the new arrivals as the camera shot panned out a bit further to reveal what was going on.

"That's Dean Ambrose!" Cole shouted. "Ambrose is assaulting Strowman, and there's Rollins now, too. What are those two doing out here?"

"They're attacking Braun Strowman," Graves said dryly as the referee threw the match out, calling a disqualification on Roman Reigns. The bell sounded several times, not that that was going to make the least bit of difference to what was happening. After his initial beat down on Strowman, Ambrose had instructed Rollins to lift the giant up. The plan soon became clear.

"Rollins is setting Strowman up for... yes, the Dirty Deeds," Booker said, calling the action as it happened.

Dean hit his finisher, but Strowman still wasn't quite finished off. Once more, he managed to lift himself up on all fours, however that act proved to be a mistake. Noticing the perfect position their target was in, Seth climbed up on the ring apron. Everyone knew what was going to happen next.

"Oh, god. Curb Stomp on the outside," Cole said. "Braun Strowman has been taken out by Ambrose and Rollins. What is this about?"

The crowd now seemed to be wondering the same thing. The initial boos that had greeted the arrival of the two heels had now been partially replaced by cheering as people saw them turn their attention to the ring, where their former Shield brother was crawling across the ring towards the ropes. Could it be true that they had shown up to help Roman? Was this the Shield reunion that everyone wanted to see?

"Wait a minute," Graves said when Ambrose and Rollins slid into the ring under the bottom rope. "We've got Ambrose, Rollins and Reigns all in the same ring. Are they here to help him?"

It appeared that they might be. At least, they weren't attacking their former partner. As Reigns tried to use the ropes to pull himself up, Rollins walked over to him, and to the audience's delight, helped him to his feet. They erupted into a cheer, but it was killed off as quickly as it started. Once Reigns was on his feet, Rollins grabbed hold of him and shoved him across the ring towards Ambrose, who was ready and waiting to deliver another Dirty Deeds. Boos rained down once more. As before, one finisher wasn't enough to completely get the job done. Like his opponent before him, Reigns was able to raise himself to all fours. Rollins promptly ran across the ring and bounced off the ropes.

"Curb Stomp on Reigns," Cole said, making his distaste for the actions he was witnessing quite plain. "Ambrose and Rollins have taken out Braun Strowman and Roman Reigns."

"Say it with the respect it deserves," Graves said. "These two men have taken out both Braun Strowman and Roman Reigns. That's no easy thing to do."

"I am shocked," Booker said as the two assailants bailed from the ring, looking particularly pleased with their handiwork.

Only a moment later, some unfamiliar theme music began to play. It was an original rock track produced by CFO$, as were many other WWE themes. In place of an entrance video, there was merely a picture of Olivia Ramsey dressed in a business suit with a self-satisfied smile on her face, with a WWE logo as a background image.

"Now what?" Cole asked.

There was almost no reaction from the fans when Olivia walked out onto the stage, nodding her approval at what she had just seen in the ring.

"Yes!" Ambrose yelled, slapping his partner on the back. They had gotten the reaction they wanted from WWE's new investor and board member.

"Do you realise what's happened here?" Graves asked his commentary partners and the audience as one. "This is Olivia Ramsey, WWE's newest investor. We've been told for weeks that she was going to show up on Raw, and tonight was the night. Ms Ramsey said she wanted to see someone stand up and impress her, and Ambrose and Rollins have just done exactly that."

The two men reached the stage. Olivia looked at each one in turn for a moment, as if making a final decision. Then she extended her hand to Seth, who took obvious pleasure in accepting it and shaking it.

"We're seeing a new alliance formed here," Cole said as Ambrose also exchanged a handshake with the new boss. "But the question is, an alliance for what purpose? What agenda does Olivia Ramsey have?"

The three new allies posed on the stage; Olivia in the middle, raising an arm of each of her new recruits.

"I don't know," Graves said in answer to Cole. "But what I do know is, we're seeing something really big. Something really, really big."

* * *

As introductions to the business went, Olivia was sure she couldn't have asked for an easier one than that. Walking back through the curtain after the show had gone off air, she just had to hope that she had done a good job of conveying the right emotions with her facial expressions. The real test, she knew, would come when she had to speak in the middle of the ring for the first time, with an audience of thousands of people actually there to react live to whatever she said. That was definitely going to be something new for her, to say the very least.

"Nice job," Seth said to her once they were safely in Gorilla.

Olivia smiled. "Thanks, but I didn't really have to do much."

"No, but you made what you did have to do look convincing."

"That's good to hear," she replied, smiling even more broadly. "So, uh, what do we do now?" she asked, realising that she had no idea as to what the protocol was after the show.

"We have a shower, get dressed and fuck off," Dean said, leading the way along the hallway towards the locker rooms. "Unless you want to go work a merchandise stand or something?"

"I'll pass," Olivia said, telling herself that sooner or later she was going to have to start fighting fire with fire as far as Dean's sarcasm was concerned. For now, though, she decided to change the subject. She looked at Seth and said, "I think it's best if I start traveling with you guys tomorrow morning, if that's okay? I came here tonight in my hire car, so I need to take it back to the hotel."

"No worries. I have breakfast with Bayley and Cesaro most days, so if you want to sort out meeting up with her in the morning, we can all get together then," Seth suggested.

"Sounds like a plan," Olivia said. They soon reached her locker room, where they said their goodbyes. To her surprise, Dean was civil about it.

"You don't waste time," Dean said to Seth after the door closed behind her and the two men continued walking along the hallway.

"What?" Seth asked innocently.

"Don't 'what' me. The girl's been here five minutes and you're already traveling with her. I might look stupid, but I'm not that far gone."

"Actually, it was Bayley's idea for Olivia to travel with us," Seth took pleasure in saying. "So maybe you are stupid after all."

Dean laughed at that. "Maybe. But either way, you're after her big time, not that I'm surprised."

"Alright, I admit it, she's hot as hell, okay?" Seth said, knowing that it was the only way he would get Dean off his back about it. "I think that video she showed us earlier was one of the hottest things I've ever seen, if you must know."

Dean grunted another laugh. "Bro, you need to watch some decent porn if that was the hottest thing you've ever seen."

"Okay, I'm checking out of this conversation," Seth said just before they entered their locker room.

* * *

"I enjoyed it, but in a way I'm glad it's over," Olivia was saying in her locker room. "I was so nervous the whole time I was out there."

"You didn't even have to do anything," Sasha said as she went about packing her things into her case. It was essential the same thing Olivia had said herself minutes before, but Sasha's tone had bordered on impatience.

"Give her a break, Sash," Bayley said much more pleasantly. She and Olivia were sitting next to each other on the bench, Bayley already wearing her regular clothes, ready to leave the arena. "She's never performed in front of a crowd before, let alone one that big. I can see why it's a big thing to have thrown at you."

Olivia appreciated the backup. Between Sasha and Dean, she was starting to feel like she wasn't entirely welcome. It wasn't the biggest surprise ever, in fact she had kind of expected it ahead of time. The wrestlers probably couldn't understand why some actress deserved to walk into a job on the show it had taken them years of blood, sweat and tears to work their way up to. There was some merit to that argument, Olivia had to admit, but then she was no threat to them or their status within the company. She was simply a colleague, not competition. Olivia guessed she would just have to try and get through it while they got used to her, in the hope that they would warm to her and start to treat her with more respect. One thing she wasn't going to do, though, was get on her knees for their approval. If they wanted to be mean to her, she would just ignore them. "It's next week I'm worrying about to be honest," she said, now talking exclusively to Bayley.

"Yeah, they're probably going to give you a talking segment," Bayley said thoughtfully.

"I'd appreciate any advice you can give me about how to deal with talking in front of so many people," Olivia said.

Sasha pulled the extendable handle out of her case and made for the door. "I'll see you tomorrow," she said.

Bayley said goodbye, but Olivia made a point of saying nothing, letting that send a message to Banks.

"Don't mind her," Bayley said once they were alone. "She's just one of those people who takes a while before they're comfortable with you."

The first thing that came to mind for Olivia was to say that it seemed like Sasha had more of a problem with her than that, but she really didn't want to talk about it. So far, Bayley was the closest she had to a friend in WWE, so she wasn't going to risk them a disagreement or argument. Luckily for her, Bayley decided to go back to Olivia's previous request for advice about speaking in front of a crowd.

"One of the key points I was always told about speaking in the ring is something you'll already be familiar with doing," she said. "And that is to be positive in the way you speak, and to keep your objective in mind. By that, I mean the lines that have been fed to you for the segment."

"Well, that I can do," Olivia said, sounding a little more at ease. "But what if they start booing me or chanting things over the top of what I'm saying?"

"Stay calm. That's by far the most important thing," Bayley said definitively. "If they see they're getting to you with what they're doing, they'll eat you alive. Even if you do feel flustered inside, don't let it show. Other than that, there's not much else I can say. If they chant something loudly enough, give them a minute to calm down, then continue. Otherwise, you can talk over the top of them."

Olivia nodded seriously, indicating that she had taken in the advice. "I'll keep those things in mine. I really appreciate it."

"It's nothing," Bayley said easily. "I'm ready to go when you are," she added, getting to her feet.

"Sure, let me just get my phone and stuff out of my locker." As Olivia collected her things, she remembered that she needed to make arrangements to meet up with Bayley and Seth over breakfast the following morning. "I was talking to Seth just now about us traveling together. I've got a hire car here tonight, so I'll have to make my own way back to the hotel. Seth suggested that we could get together over breakfast tomorrow. He wanted me to arrange it with you, so can we swap numbers or something?"

"Of course," Bayley said, taking out her phone. "Give me your number and I'll call you now."

Olivia recited her number and Bayley called it, allowing the phone to ring once to register the call. "Just text me in the morning and we'll meet up in the restaurant, or in the lobby if we've decided to go out somewhere to eat," Bayley said.

"Will do," Olivia said happily. With that, they walked out of the locker room. All things considered, it hadn't been a bad first night at her new job, Olivia decided. She had been partnered on-screen with an attractive guy who also happened to have been quite nice to her, she had fixed herself up with some travel partners, and most of all she had seemingly made a friend. Yes, there had been a couple of less positive things, but overall she was definitely happy to take the way things had gone.

A few minutes later, the two ladies were parting ways outside of Seth, Dean and Cesaro's locker room, where Bayley was meeting her travel companions. "I'll see you in the morning then," Bayley said with a warm smile.

Olivia returned the smile in kind. "I'm looking forward to it already."


	5. Chapter 5

Shark Girl Olivia. Seth had to laugh at the username she had chosen for her Instagram account. Yes, it was appropriate, but it was also pretty lame. To him, it seemed more like something a teenage girl would have chosen, not a thirty year old woman. It made him smile, though, as he clicked on her avatar and pulled up the list of photos and videos she had posted. Luckily, there was no one else in his hotel room to ask him what was so amusing.

After touching the option to follow her account, he began scrolling down the list. Ever since he had seen the video of Olivia swimming with the shark earlier in the day, Seth had been able to get it out of his head. What exactly he found so attractive about it, even he couldn't quite put a finger on, but that didn't change the fact that he found the sight of her swimming in the water mesmerising.

How much Olivia truly loved her hobby of freediving soon became clear to Seth. Almost all of her posts were either of her underwater or shots of fish that she had taken herself. Some of the creatures she had encountered were enormous, he saw. One image in particular caught his eye, encouraging him to touch it to open up the larger version.

"What the hell is that?" he muttered under his breath. The caption Olivia had added told him that the gigantic beast in question was a whale shark. He hadn't known there was any such thing.

Anyway, he told himself, he hadn't looked up her account to see images of sharks, or any other sea creature for that matter. Olivia was what he had wanted to see more of.

Scrolling further down the list, he saw a video which had a thumbnail showing his new on-screen partner smiling at the camera, wearing a pink bikini and carrying what he guessed was her dive gear.

Seth touched the video, starting it playing.

"I think this is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen," Olivia said excitedly for the benefit of the viewer. Seth saw in the description that it had been filmed in Mallorca, Spain. "The weather is amazing," Olivia went on. "The scenery is breathtaking and the water looks incredible. Time to dive, I say. Follow me."

Whoever was doing the filming obeyed Olivia's request, following along behind her as she descended a stone spiral staircase built into the cliff face. The camera angle on offer showed Seth what an amazing ass she had. It was all he could focus on while she walked down the stairs. That body was wasted in a business suit, he thought. Unsurprisingly for someone who swam as much as her, she was well toned and obviously athletic.

On the video, Olivia reached the bottom of the staircase and Seth saw exactly what she had meant about the scenery. In front of her was some of the bluest ocean Seth had ever seen, with the sun gleaming off it out of a cloudless sky. Across the small bay there was more coastline covered in tall trees. There were no other people in sight anywhere.

"You could easily come here and never want to go back," Olivia said, admiring the view again herself, her long hair blowing in the breeze. Then she turned to the camera once more, with a smile that was very alluring to Seth. "But we're not here to sit in the sun, we're here to dive."

Crouching down, she put her long black fins on her feet. When that was done, she put on her scuba mask, put her snorkel in her mouth and gave a thumbs up to the camera. The she turned and dove off of the rocky outcropping she had been standing on and disappeared into the water a few feet below.

"God damn, she's fucking gorgeous," Seth said after the video ended. He wanted to explore every inch of that body for himself. However, he had a problem. Even assuming that Olivia would be interested in him, relationships with other people on the roster at WWE could be a risky business. If things went wrong it became the talk of the locker room, and then everyone felt like they had to pick a side. It could be a real mess.

That was thinking a long way ahead, though. Another thing he had to tell himself was to make sure he didn't let his dick do all the thinking. Olivia had only worked for WWE for a grand total of one night, and it had been obvious that she had been nervous about the new job. Seth was considerate enough to decide that it wouldn't be fair at all to make a move on her while she had things like that weighing on her mind, no matter how much he wanted to.

He would give it a couple of weeks, he thought. If he could hold out that long, of course.

* * *

The next morning, the now four person strong group of travel companions had met up in the hotel's lobby before heading out to find somewhere local to eat breakfast.

"Very nice, that was," Cesaro said. He was the last to finish his food. Everyone had gone for something reasonably healthy, although the wrestlers had all ordered something potato based to start their day off with some carbs.

Meanwhile, Olivia had enjoyed a bowl of mixed fruits, saying that she wasn't much of a breakfast person. She had joined the others in a nice strong cup of coffee though. "I'm guessing you guys have to work out every morning?" she ventured, taking her best guess at what the morning routine of a wrestler would be like.

"Yeah," Bayley replied. "We'll either go to a local CrossFit place, if there is one, or we'll use the hotel's gym. It's a gym day today."

"Oh, that's good," Olivia said. "I don't do gym work, but I always start a day with a swim when I'm at home. I saw the hotel has an outdoor pool, so that's where I'll be."

Seth immediately had Olivia in a bikini images in his mind again. "I like a swim every now and then," he said without thinking. "But not necessarily with sharks snapping at my heels."

Olivia giggled. "They don't snap at your heels, Seth. The most they'll do is come and have a look at you."

"Yeah, to see if you look like food," Cesaro chuckled.

"Will there be sharks when we dive?" Bayley asked nervously, suddenly wondering what she might have let herself in for.

"No," Olivia assured her, laughing at the fearful expression her new friend, if that terms wasn't presumptuous, had on her face. "We'll dive in some shallower, quieter waters."

Seth's ears had pricked up at that part of the conversation. "You guys are planning a dive? I didn't know you could, Bay?"

"I can't. It would be my first time. Olivia has been kind enough to offer to teach me. She's an… instructor?" Bayley asked Olivia, trying to remember the correct term.

"Dive master, but you're close enough," Olivia said pleasantly.

"Sounds like it'll be a lot of fun," Seth said. He had been tempted to say that he would have liked to tag along, but that would have been a bit too forward, and he would have been inserting himself into plans that had already been made.

Twenty minutes later, the group were back at their hotel. During the journey, Bayley had convinced Olivia to join them in the gym. Although she had agreed, Olivia had said she would only use a treadmill. Lifting weights was definitely not her idea of fun.

"They're hard at it already," Olivia observed when she followed Bayley into the gym. Seth and Cesaro were already lifting weights on contraptions that she couldn't even guess the name of.

"We must have spent more time chatting than we realised while we were changing," Bayley said with a grin. The gym wasn't particularly busy, so she found herself some empty floor space and began some warm up exercises.

"Okay, I'll, uh, be over on the treadmill then," Olivia said. She walked over to one of the machines and stepped on to it. The first task was to figure out how it worked. She just hadn't had the courage to admit that she had never used a piece of gym equipment before, not to these people who did so day in, day out, without even thinking twice about it. Olivia's exercise came in the form of a run along the beach or a swim in the ocean, not standing on some weird device that had you running on a conveyor belt.

"Better get used to it," she told herself. Now that she had accepted the job with WWE, there was going to be a hell of a lot less beach time in her life.

Starting the machine going at a jogging pace to warm up proved to be easy enough. One of the things she usually enjoyed when running was the scenery; another downside to doing it in a gym. In here, with the treadmills arranged facing the lifting machines, all she had to look at was Cesaro, Seth and a couple of other men's sweaty bodies.

But then, that wasn't all bad, she had to admit. Seth's body certainly wasn't unpleasant to look at. The way his muscles strained as he worked quickly had her in rapt attention. So much so that she didn't notice Cesaro stop for a drink from his water bottle and walk over to Bayley a while later. She was lying on an exercise mat in a corner of the room.

"Have you seen Olivia?" Cesaro asked quietly, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

Bayley finished her set of stomach crunches before looking over at their travel partner. She couldn't see what the issue was. "She's running, so what?"

"Not what she's doing, who she's looking at," Cesaro clarified. "She's not taken her eyes off Seth the whole time."

"Oh," Bayly said, stretching the word out. "You think she likes him?"

"She certainly likes the look of him," Cesaro chuckled. Point made, he walked back over to get on with his workout.

"Bless," Bayley said to no one in particular. She was a real romantic at heart and found it adorable that Olivia was apparently attracted to Seth.

* * *

"That was a great workout," Seth said as he neared the end of his cool down routine.

"There's sweat pouring out of you," Olivia pointed out.

"Speak for yourself," Seth grinned.

"Yeah, well, I'm going to go for a swim in a minute," Olivia said. "I just won't feel right starting a day without a swim."

"All set, guys?" Cesaro asked, walking up to them with Bayley beside him.

"I was just saying I need a swim to cool off," Olivia told him.

"We don't have a huge amount of time before we need to get on the road," Cesaro said cautiously.

"True, but we can have a swim for half an hour if we leave afterwards," Seth countered. He had spent enough time looking at Olivia in a bikini on her Instagram, so he figured the least he ought to do was take the chance to do so in person as well, now that the chance had presented itself.

"I could go for a swim," Bayley decided. "Like he says, we can make it a quick one."

Olivia smiled, glad that they were going to join her. "I think I'll have to get up earlier in future and swim before breakfast if we have to leave early," she said.

"Yeah, we often have a lot of driving to do, and we like to have a bit of a walk around the town we're going to, if we can," Cesaro said.

With that, they left the gym and returned to the changing rooms. Once they had changed, they had to go to their rooms to change into their swimming gear. Swimming shorts could be worn with a T-shirt for the men to walk down to the pool, whereas the women had to put their bikinis on and walk down to the pool in the robes that were provided in their rooms.

The men had arrived first again, Olivia saw when she walked outside to the pool. Seth was in the middle of laughing at something Cesaro had just said. Bayley was also in the water, having left her robe on one of the sun loungers at poolside.

Seeing Olivia walk out of the building, Seth felt something stirring inside him. The conversation with Cesaro was instantly forgotten about. Not only was he going to see Olivia in a bikini, he was going to see her swim as well. No doubt she would not be as graceful on the surface as she was beneath it, but he was still transfixed by the prospect.

Then she took her robe off, putting it on the sun lounger next to the one Bayley had chosen. Sure enough, Seth saw, her figure was stunning. And she was wearing what looked like the same pink bikini as in the video he had watched the night before. The colour helped to emphasise how perfect her tan was; a natural one if ever he had seen one. God damn, she was beautiful, he thought.

Only then did Seth realise that he had been staring, and that Cesaro had set off swimming without him. In fact, it was lucky that Olivia hadn't busted him. Shaking it off, he forced himself to start swimming.

Little did he know, Bayley had seen him while she had been swimming in his direction, and had figured out exactly what he had been thinking.

* * *

After the swimming session was over, it was time for the four to return to their rooms to change and get ready to leave. Bayley and Cesaro both had rooms on the fifth floor, so they left the elevator together.

"What you said about Olivia earlier?" Bayley said once the elevator doors were safely closed.

"Yeah?" Cesaro asked, glancing at her as they walked along the hallway.

"I agree, it looks like she's attracted to Seth. And I saw Seth looking at her in her bikini when she came out to the pool. He's definitely attracted to her."

"Actually, he already told me that," Cesaro told her, knowing he could do so in confidence. "I said he should ask her to dinner and see what she said."

"Oh, yay!" Bayley squeaked excitedly. "I hope he does it. I know we've only just met Olivia, but she seems like a lovely girl. You can just tell with some people."

"I know, you're right," Cesaro said. "But what if he doesn't ask her?"

Bayley reached the door to her room and set about unlocking it with her key card. As she did so, she looked back at Cesaro with a mischievous grin on her face. "Then we set them up."


	6. Chapter 6

_Can you meet me downstairs in the restaurant for dinner in half an hour? I was going to eat with Cesaro but he's decided to go to a club with Sheamus instead._

"Half an hour?" Seth said aloud after reading Bayley's text message, even though he was alone in his hotel room. "Give me a bit more notice why don't you?" But then he had to admit that it wasn't Bayley's fault Cesaro had changed their plans at the last minute. It wasn't particularly like him to do that kind of thing, either. Whatever Sheamus had planned for the night must have sounded good. Now Bayley was faced with the prospect of eating alone. Knowing that he would feel bad if he turned down the invite in those circumstances, there was no real decision for Seth to make. He typed out his response.

_Sure. I'll meet you down there as quick as I can. Still need to shower._

A moment later, his phone bleeped again. Another message from Bayley.

_Thanks, Seth. Don't take too long, please._

"Don't ask for much, do you?" Seth complained to himself as he got up and headed for the bathroom.

A while later, Seth found himself studying his reflection in the mirror next to the room's large TV. "That'll do," he decided. There was no reason why a dark blue polo shirt and a pair of jeans wouldn't be acceptable for having dinner in the hotel's restaurant. It wasn't as if he was out to impress anyone, and in any event he hadn't had much notice to work with. Checking the time on his phone, he saw that he had almost managed to make it in the half hour Bayley had requested. Grabbing his wallet and his room key card, he hurried out of the room.

On his way down to the ground floor in the elevator, he briefly considered sending a text to Olivia and asking her to join them for dinner. It was a bit late for that now, he reasoned. In any case, he scolded himself, he was only thinking about it because he hadn't found the guts to ask her out on date yet. Asking her to join them tonight would have just been taking the easy way out and doing things in half measures.

More than two weeks had gone by since Olivia had started working for WWE and traveling with their little group, and Seth was sure that by now he wasn't far from becoming obsessed with her. Beautiful women were certainly not a rare commodity in the wrestling business, but there was something extra special about Olivia that even Seth couldn't put his finger on. Maybe it was those damned underwater videos that he couldn't stop watching when he shamelessly stalked her Instagram page. She moved through the water like a mermaid or something. It was absolutely mesmerising to watch.

"Fuck, I really do need to ask her to dinner one night," he muttered to himself. It was getting pathetic at this point. No, it was already worse than pathetic. Stalking a colleague's social media to watch videos of her freediving instead of asking her out was cringeworthy, especially when he knew for a fact that she was single, and, if Cesaro was to believed, that she possibly even had a crush on him in return, too. That was what Cesaro had claimed to have picked up on, anyway. Shaking his head, Seth thought that it was like being a teenager with a high school crush all over again, apart from the fact that he was now thirty one.

The real truth of it was that he hadn't asked Olivia on a date for two reasons. Firstly, she was still new to WWE and he genuinely didn't want to make things awkward for her while she was getting used to working in their crazy world, but more importantly, he hadn't wanted to risk the possibility that she might say no. He knew that he probably should have thought about that a couple of weeks earlier, when he might have stood half a chance of getting her out of his head.

The elevator reached the ground floor and the doors slid open, snapping Seth back into reality. Food, that was what he ought to be thinking about. A burger felt like just the thing, if they had any decent ones on the menu. There was never any way to predict what you might find in a hotel restaurant, which was why he often avoided them. But tonight was Bayley's gig, and this was where she had chosen to eat.

Seth walked into the restaurant and scanned the room, looking for his friend. And froze.

* * *

Olivia looked at her watch, then across the restaurant towards the entrance. There was still no sign of her friend. Come on, Bayley, she thought. She knew that she hadn't made a mistake with the time Bayley had arranged for them to have dinner, yet she was more than five minutes late. For some people, that amount of time would barely have been worthy of notice, but Bayley was always early to things, certainly never late.

"Can I get you a drink while you wait?" the server who had shown Olivia to the table asked, walking back over to her.

"I'll have an OJ and lemonade, please," she said, taking out her phone to make sure she hadn't missed a last minute text or call to put off the dinner. Nothing. She had known that before checking anyway, since her phone wasn't in silent mode.

Another couple of minutes went by before the server returned with the drink. By then, Olivia was tempted to send a message to Bayley to tell her than she was in the restaurant as a nudge to get her to hurry up. Even though the place was a long way from busy, sitting at a table alone was still making her feel awkward. Two more minutes, she decided, taking a first sip from her drink. Then she saw someone enter the restaurant. It wasn't Bayley. What a nice coincidence that Seth had happened to walk in, she thought, giving him a wave and a smile to encourage him to come over and join her.

Much quicker on the uptake and less naive, Seth had quickly figured out what was going on. The question he had in mind was how exactly to kill Bayley next time he saw her. Setting him up with a dinner date with Olivia, of all things. And as if that wasn't bad enough, he hadn't made much of an effort with his appearance; certainly not as much as he would have if he had known it was a date he was about to walk into. Still, he was committed now.

"Hi, Olivia," Seth smiled, approaching her table, noting along the way how hot she looked in her light grey dress. The colour showed off her amazing natural tan really well. And that smile...

"Have a seat and join us," Olivia offered, gestured to the chair opposite hers. "Bayley will be here in a minute."

Seth was taken by surprise by that. In a way, he liked that innocence about her. It still hadn't occurred to her to suspect mischief on Bayley's part. "Uh, I don't think she will," he said as he sat down, making sure to sound light-hearted about it. He certainly didn't want it to come across like he thought she was stupid. Dean had made that mistake on night number one. "I think we've been set up for a dinner date by our 'friend.'"

"Oh!" Olivia exclaimed, eyes widening as the penny dropped. "Bayley! I didn't know she had it in her!"

Seth grunted a laugh. "Don't you believe it. She probably had Cesaro helping her, too."

The first question that came to mind for Olivia was why? Why would Bayley do this? Obviously she had figured out the crush that Olivia had on Seth, but what about Seth himself? Surely to set up a date like this, there must have been signals coming in the opposite direction also. Olivia had thought she had been imagining what she had seen in the occasional look he had given her here or there, a smile that seemed to have a bit more meaning behind it, that kind of thing. But maybe she had been right all along. Maybe Seth did actually like her. That thought made her heart skip a beat.

"If you're not comfortable with this, we can just have a drink and I'll take off?" Seth offered. He knew that making the offer of leaving was the noble thing to do, but he didn't want it to be accepted, not at all.

"I'm kind of hungry, and I don't really enjoy eating alone," Olivia said coyly.

Seth managed to take that in his stride and reach for the menus. "Then we'd better see if they have anything that looks good," he said, handing one to Olivia.

The server appeared again while they were looking at the menus. "Can I start you with a drink, sir?"

"Yeah, I'll have a coke, please."

"I've never seen you drink anything alcoholic," Olivia said, looking at him over the top of her menu after the server walked away. It had been phrased as a simple comment, not an accusation of some kind.

"I do drink, but not when I'm on the road for work. There's nothing quite like having to wake up and go to the gym when you've got a hangover. Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen you drink anything either."

"I don't drink alcohol. I had a bad experience when I was a teenager; got way too carried away at someone's house party and ended up in hospital getting my stomach pumped. Not something I'd wish on anyone, I can tell you. I've never touched alcohol since. Sorry, probably not the kind of thing to talk about before we eat," Olivia said with a grimace.

"It's fine," Seth assured her.

The server returned with Seth's drink and asked if they were ready to order. Seth looked at Olivia, offering her the chance to go first.

"I'm just going to get a main," she decided. "I like the look of the Traditional Shepherd's Pie."

"Shepard's pie," the server acknowledged. "And for you, sir?"

Seth decided it was best just to order a main as well, otherwise Olivia would have to wait ages to get her food. The was no burger available, so went for his next preference. "I'll get the New York Strip, please, cooked medium."

"Coming up," the server said with a smile. He took their menus and left the table.

"I think I've eaten in restaurants more times in the last two weeks than I did in the year before that," Olivia said, thinking about how much the WWE job was changing her life. She had known that would be the case ahead of time of course, but it was still taking some adjusting to.

"It comes with the job," Seth agreed. "Could be worse, though. I can remember only having enough money to eat from McDonald's and other awful fast food places."

"Eww," Olivia said, wrinkling her nose up at the idea. "I've only had a McDonald's once. I asked them not to put relish on my burger, which they did anyway. It tasted disgusting, and it felt like eating a chunk of cardboard. Whatever they made that burger out of, it wasn't beef."

Seth chuckled. "Nice image."

"Sorry," Olivia said for the second time in as many minutes. "I don't usually talk about disgusting things when I'm out to eat. Let's change the subject. Tell me some more about you. I've never really had the chance to talk to you one on one. There's always so much chatter in the car, plus that awful music you and Cesaro like to listen to."

"Awful music?" Seth objected strongly, playing along, knowing that she had made the comment to needle him. Inside, he was delighted that she felt comfortable enough to do so. "Come on then, what music do you like?"

"If I had to pick some I would say classical, but I honestly hardly ever listen to music," Olivia said frankly.

Trying to imagine a life without music was about as alien a concept as Seth could think of. Driving, working out, cleaning his house, cooking a meal, virtually everything he did in fact, was done done to the sound of music. "You must listen to something," he said, wondering if she was actually serious. "Whether it's to fire you up or relax you, music can be good for anything."

"I listen to the sounds of the sea when I want to relax," Olivia informed him. "By opening the window if I'm at home, or on Youtube if I'm not."

"The sounds of the sea, huh?" Seth asked, thinking that maybe he could see why that would be relaxing. But then, he had to consider how at home she obviously felt in the water. It was her passion, that much was more than obvious.

"You think I'm crazy," Olivia guessed.

Seth risked a joke. "Maybe a little."

Olivia grinned at him over the top of her glass before sipping from it. Her eyes seemed to twinkle in amusement at the joke Seth had made. He knew at that moment, beyond any shadow of doubt that he had fallen for her.

"Anyway, we're talking about me. I asked you to tell me about you," Olivia said after she put her glass back down on the table.

"There's not much to tell," Seth said with a shrug. "I'm a country boy from Iowa who always wanted to be a wrestler. I started out working shows in local gymnasiums and sports halls in front of twenty people, now I work for WWE. I'm living the dream."

"I can tell how much you love what you do," Olivia said genuinely. By all accounts, he was one of the best wrestlers out there, too. She might not have been a fountain of knowledge when it came to wrestling, but she did know that. "What's Iowa like? Is it really all farms?"

Seth chuckled. "Pretty much. My dad was a farmer."

"Was?" Olivia asked sensitively.

"Yeah, was," Seth said, looking downcast for a moment. "He also loved to ride motorbikes. Someone pulled out of a junction on him one day, he swerved onto the other side of the road instinctively to avoid it, but there was a van coming."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Olivia breathed, not needing him to go into any more detail.

"Thanks," Seth muttered. "After dad died, mom had to sell the farm. She was never really the same. She got stomach cancer a few years back, and it beat her pretty quickly. Sorry, I'm spoiling the atmosphere now."

"Don't apologise," Olivia said gently. "Actually, I know how you feel. I lost my dad to cancer a few years back, too. He got lung cancer, despite never smoking a cigarette in his life. My mom's still with us though, bless her."

"I'm sorry for you loss," Seth said, feeling them bonding over their personal tragedies. "It's hard at times, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Olivia paused for a second then said, "Do you still live in Iowa?"

Seth was glad she had changed the subject before they both started getting upset. "No. I moved out to Florida when I signed for WWE. I was on NXT then of course, so it was logical to move down to Orlando. A lot of the guys live down there now. Bayley has an apartment there."

"Ah, yes, our friend who set us up tonight. We need to think of a way to get back at her for that," Olivia said mischievously, having fun again already. "Maybe I'll arrange a little accident when I take her on that dive next week."

"That's next week?" Seth asked with interest.

"Yeah. It'll be the first time I've had chance to get home since I started with WWE. Bayley's partner is on the road with whatever wrestling company she said he works for, so we arranged to go stay at my place for a couple of days. It'll be a lot of fun."

"I've always wanted to try learning to dive myself," Seth lied. The truth was that it had only been a thing for the last couple of weeks.

"Really?" Olivia asked excitedly, and he knew he had her on the hook.

"Absolutely. I've always thought it would be a lot of fun, and there must be so much cool stuff to see. I can't say great white sharks was ever top of the list, but I know you and Bayley aren't going to dive where there are sharks anyway."

"No, I know plenty of places we can go where there are no sharks but there's loads of other cool stuff to see. I'm talking about perfect places for a first dive. Hey, if you've always wanted to try it, you should come with us," Olivia said, sounding excited about the final sentence as the idea dawned on her.

"Are you sure?" Seth asked. He had just struck gold with the invite, but he was in control of himself enough to know that he might turn the trip Bayley was looking forward to into a two's company, three's a crowd situation, and that would not be fair. But then he realised that it was Bayley; of course she wouldn't mind. No one was ever happier to spend time with friends than she was.

"I'm sure," Olivia said positively. "I mean, you'd have to sleep on the couch. My place isn't very big and I only have two bedrooms. But if you don't mind that, you're welcome to come and stay, and I can teach you to dive. The only thing with that is, I can only dive with one of you at a time. But that's not a problem; we can do one in the morning and one in the afternoon, then again the next day. As long as I take a break for an hour or two in between it'll be fine. You don't think Bayley will mind, do you?"

"No, I'm sure she won't mind."

"What about Cesaro?" Olivia wondered next. "He might feel like I'm leaving him out, being the only one in our group who isn't coming."

"Don't worry about him, he'll be using the time off to go back home and see his girlfriend. There's nothing we could say we were doing that would change his mind on that one, trust me."

Olivia gave him a dazzling smile. "Then we have a plan. I'm really looking forward to it."

The server chose that moment to show up with their food. As he placed their meals in front of them, Seth was thinking that Olivia wasn't looking forward to the trip as much as he was. There would be no more need for snooping on Instagram videos, that was for sure.

Over their meal, they chatted away about their childhoods and how they had arrived at where they were now in life. They both found themselves fully enjoying the free-flowing conversation. Only when the plates had been cleared did Olivia realise just how well Bayley's little setup had worked out for them. She was now certain that she had deeper feelings for Seth than simply finding him attractive. Personality had always been the main thing she judged guys on, and she liked him. She liked him a lot. She decided to take a small step towards letting him know that, taking in a deep breath for courage. "I guess I should thank Bayley, as well as thanking you. I've had a nice time, Seth."

"So have I," Seth said with a smile. "We can certainly let her off without any kind of revenge attack, I think."

The server brought the bill over and placed it at the end of the table. "I'll get this," Seth said quickly, picking it up before Olivia had the chance to.

"You don't have to pay for me, Seth," she told him.

"Maybe not, but I'm going to," he insisted, taking out his wallet and starting to count out some money. "Besides, you just invited me to your house. I think buying you a meal is the least I can do."

Olivia tried to make her eyes put the meaning into the next thing she wanted to say, the one that had required the courage. "Okay then, thank you. But that means I have to pay next time."

"Well, I wouldn't say..." Seth stopped in his tracks as he put the bill back at the end of the table with the money underneath it. He looked at Olivia and yes, her expression was clear. She was effectively asking him on another date. "We'll see about who pays, next time," he managed to say without stumbling too badly.

With that, Olivia stood up, ready to leave. Seth followed suit and they walked out of the restaurant side by side. Once they were in the elevator, Seth had the next problem on his mind. His floor was on the fourth floor and Olivia had asked for the seventh. Should he just get out on his floor, or walk her to her room? Getting out on his floor was probably the better idea, he decided. He didn't want to appear too forward on a first date. Olivia plainly wasn't that sort of girl.

"This is me," Seth said unnecessarily when the elevator reached the fourth floor. The doors opened. "Goodnight, Olivia," he said politely.

"Goodnight," Olivia replied, then reached up and gave him a peck on the cheek.

Seth walked out of the elevator, replaying that little kiss in his head. He wanted so much more, but he was glad to have gotten that little peck. What mattered most was that what had started out as a boring evening in his hotel room had turned into a date with the girl he'd had on his mind for a while, and it had been a good date at that. He owed Bayley a lot, he realised, for doing something that he hadn't been able to find the courage to do himself.

Meanwhile, the elevator continued up to the seventh floor. Olivia rode alone, feeling happier than she had in a long time. Since she was generally a happy person, that was saying something. Who would have thought that a guy as hot as Seth Rollins would be interested in her? But he was. There was little doubt about that at this point. With that knowledge in mind, it put another spin on the invite she had given him to come and stay at her place for a couple of days the following week. Who knew where that might lead? She felt her heart beating a little faster at the prospect.

The elevator doors opened again on the seventh floor. Olivia found one of the other wrestlers there waiting for it. Finn, she recalled as she smiled to acknowledge him, happy that her awful memory for names hadn't failed her on this occasion.

"How are you?" he asked as they walked past each other.

"Great, thanks," Olivia answered. It was an understatement.


	7. Chapter 7

"Oh, Olivia, this is wonderful," Bayley said enthusiastically. "I've fallen in love with it already. Can I stay forever?"

Beside her, Seth nodded his agreement with the sentiments. They were standing with their host, on a first floor wooden balcony at the back of her wooden beachside house in Hawaii. The evening sun beat down on them out of a cloudless blue sky that was almost the same colour as the sea, which lapped gently onto the flawless white sand beach. There wasn't another person in sight.

"It's like having your own little piece of heaven," Bayley went on.

"She's right," Seth said. "This must be a really amazing place to live."

"Thanks, guys. It's only a small house, but I couldn't imagine anywhere else I'd rather call home," Olivia said modestly. "I'm happy to have you come out to stay here."

It was true that the house was small; consisting of an open plan living area and kitchen on the ground floor, with two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, in addition to the balcony which was accessed through the larger bedroom. A small wooden table and three chairs were arranged on the balcony; a perfect place for eating meals. A sun lounger completed the furnishings, set up at the far end of the balcony.

On the way to Olivia's house from the airport, she had taken them to a local restaurant specialising in traditional Hawaiian food. With their appetites satisfied, she had one more thing in mind to get them accustomed to the lifestyle that she was used to herself. She hoped to make them feel at home during their stay, not that they were just visiting for a couple of days. "Have a seat at the table, guys. I'll be back in a minute."

"She's so lucky to live here," Bayley said to Seth after they had taken their seats. "It was really nice of her to invite us out here when she's not even known us for very long."

"You're right, it was good of her. I think we're going to enjoy our two days here," Seth said in a very relaxed tone. He had been looking forward to the trip ever since the date he'd had with Olivia the week before. Although they hadn't had a second date as yet, he hoped that, if his luck was in, things might progress in that regard during this trip, too.

"I thought about backing out and leaving the two of you to it," Bayley said in a hushed tone, sensing that she was thinking along the same lines as her friend. She was aware, of course, that the date she had set Seth and Olivia up for had been a success. Both of them had told her that when privacy had permitted itself, among threats of revenge and physical violence. Thankfully, the threats had been made in good humour, which said as much as anything else about how right she had been to try and get them together, since neither of them had shown any intent to do so themselves beforehand.

"You were invited before I was. And it's been obvious how excited you are about learning to dive. I would have felt bad if you had backed out, even if it was to give me and Olivia some time together."

"Maybe I can do both," Bayley pondered, relaxing back in the chair, enjoying the sun. The mischief in her eyes was hidden by her sunglasses.

"No more matchmaking from you," Seth warned her.

"I second that," Olivia said as she walked back out onto the balcony. She was carrying a tray with three large glasses on it, each one filled with a pinkish liquid, along with a straw and some ice. After setting the tray carefully down on the table and taking the final seat at the table, Olivia handed a drink to each of her friends. "Just to welcome you both properly to Hawaii, I wanted to make you a fruit cocktail."

"It looks good," Seth said. "What is it?"

"It's cranberry juice, grapefruit juice and peach nectar. Bay, the name is particularly appropriate for you. It's called Cuddles on the Beach."

Everyone took a sip from their drinks, then Bayley said, "That sounds more appropriate for you two than me. If anyone's going to be having cuddles on the beach..."

Olivia looked at Seth and rolled her eyes. "Is this how it's going to be the whole time, do you think?"

"What, cuddles on the beach?" he asked with a cheeky grin.

"Ugh, you're both impossible," Olivia said good-naturedly.

"You invited us," Bayley giggled.

"And don't I regret it," Olivia said bitterly, playing along with the joke. Then she got serious. Raising her glass, she said, "Welcome, both of you. Here's to a great couple of days."

"Thanks for having us," Seth said, clinking glasses with her.

"It's going to be a lot of fun," Bayley added, touching the other two glasses with her own.

* * *

After breakfast the next morning, Olivia had driven her two soon-to-be trainees to a local dive shop so that they could rent some gear. "Here we are," she announced, pulling the car into a small parking lot.

"That was quick," Bayley said, her excitement for the morning's events more than apparent, as it had been since the moment she had come down for breakfast.

"Yep. I'm sure it won't surprise you that I'm a regular here. But hey, that means you get good rates," Olivia smiled. "Come on, let's go in."

"Stunning weather again," Seth commented as he got out of the car. Just like the previous evening, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The sun was already beating down again, despite the early hour. "I've never been to Hawaii before. Is it hot like this all year round?"

"Pretty much," Olivia said, leading the way towards the entrance to the dive shop. "That's one of the main reasons I wanted to move here. I love the sun."

"I can tell that from your tan," Seth said, already having checked her out in her T-shirt and shorts that revealed most of her shapely legs.

"Nice to know you've been looking," Olivia said coyly.

Walking behind them, Bayley had to try hard to stop herself squealing in delight at the fact that she had seen them flirt with each other for the first time.

"Hi, Jon," Olivia said cheerfully to a man standing behind the sales counter when she walked into the shop.

Seth saw that the man in question, presumably the owner, was tall and had curly black hair and a few day's growth of beard. He also had a ready smile that made him seem immediately likable. Looking briefly around the shop at all of the gear, Seth felt glad that Olivia was there. He wouldn't have known where to start.

"Olivia," Jon said, conveying pleasant surprise. "It's been a while. How's the new job treating you?"

"I'm really enjoying it." Olivia stood aside slightly to introduce the others. "I've brought two friends to stay for a couple of days. They work for WWE, too. Meet Seth and Bayley."

"Howdy," Jon said, smiling again. Seth and Bayley both greeted him in return, then he said, "So what brings you all here? Are you planning a dive?"

"Close," Olivia said. "Neither of them have dived before, but they're keen to try it, so I'm going to teach them. We need to rent a full set of gear for each of them, and we'll need air cylinders for the three of us of course."

"Of course. I know you don't any help from me to pick things out, so help yourself. I'll give you everything with the usual discount."

"Thanks, Jon. I really appreciate it," Olivia said. She then turned to Seth and Bayley. "Okay guys, let's get you kitted out."

"Let's go," Bayley said. She was standing beside a rack of wetsuits. "Do we need these?"

"Yep, it's always a good idea to wear a wetsuit for scuba diving. It's important to find a wetsuit, mask and fins which fit you personally, whereas the other gear is more standardised."

Seth managed to hide his disappointment at the first piece of news. There wasn't going to be any bikini action after all, at least not while they were diving. He told himself to stop trying to sexualise the experience and concentrate on what Olivia was saying. He was here to learn to dive. She was explaining why a wetsuit was necessary, informing them that even though the weather and water were warm on the surface, it would still be cold further down. A couple of minutes later, both he and Bayley had wetsuits that would fit them set aside on the sales counter for when they were ready to pay.

"Okay, masks next," Olivia said, walking over to a wall display where there must have been fifty of the things.

Seth noticed that the silicone elements of more than half of them were clear, whereas the others were black. He knew that there had to be a reason, and he recalled that Olivia always seemed to use black ones, judging by her pictures and videos. "Why are there some clear ones and some black ones?" he asked.

"Good question," Olivia said, warming to her task as their dive instructor. She had enjoyed teaching a few people in the past after gaining her qualification to be an instructor, and was expecting it to be an even better experience with friends. She picked two masks up from the display, one with clear silicone and one with black. "The things you're talking about are called the mask skirts. Clear skirts give you a bit more field of vision and allow more light in. I find they can give you a problem with glare in certain conditions, which is why I always use black. If you were looking to buy, I'd also mention that clear skirts discolour over time. On the other hand, black ones obviously block out more light and give you a bit more of a tunnel vision sensation. If either of you suffer from claustrophobia, you might not want to choose black."

"I don't like sun glare, so I'll go with black," Seth decided, taking the one Olivia had in her hand and looking at it more closely.

"I'll go with your recommendation too," Bayley said. "But there are so many different masks. How do we know which one we want?"

"Just try a few," Olivia said. "You want one that feels comfortable on your face. It doesn't want to feel too tight in order to form a seal. Here, let me show you. Seth, put yours on."

Seth did as she asked, getting the strap in position on the back of his head, then lowering the mask over his face. When he was ready, Olivia reached up to demonstrate how to adjust the strap. Seth felt her warm breath directly against his ear and something stirred within him once more. Damn, he wanted to kiss her so badly.

"That actually looks like a good fit for you," Olivia said, pleasantly surprised. "Does it feel comfortable?"

"Yeah, I guess," Seth said, unsure what an uncomfortable mask would have felt like.

"Okay, take it off and put it with the wetsuits."

"Yes, boss," Seth said cheekily.

Olivia just shook her head and turned to Bayley. "Bay, you have a fairly wide nose, so that mask you have there probably isn't the one for you. Here, try this." She picked another mask up off the display and handed it over. Sure enough, it proved to be a good fit. When she was happy, Bayley took it back off and put it with their growing stack of gear on the end of the sales counter.

"Next, fins," Olivia announced, leading them back towards the front of the shop. "Again, you need to find some that are comfortable, but not too tight. Definitely don't go too loose, though because they can fall off while you're swimming."

Bayley went straight for a pair of dark purple fins. "Look at these. They're Bayley Buddy colour. I have to try them."

"Bayley Buddy colour," Seth repeated with a chuckle. Then he looked at Olivia. "These all look smaller than the ones you use."

"The ones I use?" Olivia said with a raised eyebrow. She hadn't gotten her gear out back at the house, so there was only one way Seth could have that knowledge. "You've been checking out my videos, huh?"

"Uh, I had a look at a couple," Seth floundered, knowing that he had spoken without thinking and dropped himself in it. Now both Olivia and Bayley knew he had been Instagram stalking.

In the background, Bayley had crouched down to test the fit of the fins she had selected. She was now looking up and giving him a 'you're busted' expression.

"I see," Olivia said, allowing her eyes to linger on his for a moment. To Seth's surprise, he saw that she seemed to like the revelation. That had to be good news. "To answer your question, my fins are a lot more expensive than these. But these are plenty good enough to do your first couple of dives with."

"Right," Seth muttered, trying his best not to sound embarrassed. He busied himself with choosing a pair of fins.

Ten minutes later, the trio were walking out of the dive shop with all of the gear they needed, including four air tanks, since Olivia would be diving once with each of them. They stowed it all carefully in the trunk, then Olivia said, "Okay, back to the house. I'll run in and get my gear, then we can get to it."

Both Olivia and Seth went to close the trunk at the same time and his hand ended up on top of hers. Olivia felt herself tingling slightly at his touch, knowing now just how attracted he was to her, just as she was to him. Their eyes met again, and they both felt the connection.

Meanwhile, Bayley had quickly gotten into the car to avoid giving away her excitement at what she had just seen. "Oh my, sparks are flying," she squeaked to herself. At this rate, her services as matchmaker were not going to be needed for much longer.


	8. Chapter 8

"Okay then, who's going first?" Olivia asked. The group of three friends were now on the beach behind her house, with all of their dive gear arranged in front of them, ready to use.

"Bay can go first," Seth replied. "Ladies first and all that, plus she was invited before me anyway."

"Thanks! I'm so excited!" Bayley said, almost bouncing up and down as she struggled to contain herself.

Olivia grinned. "There's nothing like enthusiasm. Come on then, first thing to do is get into our wetsuits."

"I'll just chill out here until you're done," Seth said while they went about their task. He lay down on his back on the sand, glad that he was wearing sunglasses, and not just because of the bright sunlight. They also gave him the chance to discretely check out Olivia while her attention was on Bayley. He would have much preferred to see her in a bikini rather than a wetsuit, but beggars could not be choosers.

He listened to the conversation while Olivia talked Bayley through how to put on her gear and how to check that it was all safe to use. She then moved on to explaining how to check that each other's air cylinders and regulators were working. Bayley seemed to be picking it up okay, not needing to stop and have things repeated.

"How do I look?" Bayley asked Seth when they were ready to go. She even had her fins and mask on.

"Like a total idiot," Seth giggled. "But then, so will I when it's my turn."

"Shut up, scuba gear is awesome," Bayley said good-naturedly. "Hey, take a picture of me before we go."

"Alright," Seth agreed, standing back up and taking his phone out the pocket on the side of his shorts. "I'll wait until Olivia's ready as well."

Olivia took the cue and put on her own mask and fins. They posed together with an arm around each other's shoulders. After taking the shot, Seth said, "Now I need to think of a caption to put on it when I post it."

"It had better be a nice one," Olivia warned him. "We'll be about an hour."

"No rush," Seth said. "Enjoy, Bay."

"Thanks, I know I will," Bayley said excitedly. "I still can't believe they had Bayley Buddy coloured fins, and they fitted me."

With that, and a shake of the head from Seth, the two women made their way down the beach towards the sea. Only then did it occur to him that it was deliberate on Olivia's part that they were doing their first dive from the shore because it would make them feel more at ease to be able to walk out to the deeper water instead of just jumping over the side of a boat and being right into the action.

Seth lay back down on the sand, but raised his head slightly so that he could watch what Bayley and Olivia were doing. It looked like the instructor was running over some of the required underwater hand signals that they would need to use to communicate with each other. Seth genuinely was looking forward to his turn, as he really did want to learn to dive. But what he wanted more was the chance to spend some time with Olivia one on one. There could have been no mistaking the connection between them earlier in the morning, back at the dive shop. Even though he had screwed up and inadvertently admitted to Instagram stalking her, Olivia hadn't seemed to mind. If anything, she had seemed to view it as a compliment or something. That told him a lot about her feelings towards him. And then there had been the moment they had both tried to close her car's trunk at the same time and ended up touching hands. He had been able to see in her eyes that the touch had set her heart racing. She wanted him, and he wanted her. Now they just had to make it happen.

But what was the best way to make it happen? Bayley had played a key part in getting them to this point. They owed her a lot for that, but now her presence was going to make things awkward, especially with how small Olivia's house was. There wasn't much chance of them having any privacy. Maybe he could speak to Bayley? Even that would be awkward, though. What could he say? "Bay, I think I might be able to get my dick wet if you make yourself scarce." That was hardly appropriate.

"Cross that bridge when you come to it," he told himself. "If you come to it," he corrected a moment later. After all, there was still a possibility that he was seeing what he wanted to see in terms of signals from Olivia. It was very unlikely that he was mistaken, but it was possible. He would only know for sure when he made a move. Then he decided that was probably what he should do: make a move and see what happened from there. No guts, no glory, he told himself.

Yes, he decided, once his dive was over, he would make a move. He had to seize the moment while they were in Hawaii because it would be a lot harder when they were back working with WWE, for a whole bunch of reasons. Looking up again, he saw that Bayley and Olivia were now wading out to sea. The water was currently up to their chests. With a contended sigh, Seth lay back down on the sand. Before too much longer, he would be in the water with Olivia himself, watching her swim like a mermaid, just like in those videos. That thought would be enough to occupy his mind while he waited for them to return.

* * *

"Seth! That was amazing!"

The sound of Bayley's voice startled Seth. As he sat up, he wondered if he had been drifting off to sleep. It was certainly possible, given how warm the weather was. He saw Bayley and Olivia were just about to walk out of the sea onto the beach. He waited until they reached him to reply. "You enjoyed it, then, Bay?"

"More than I can describe," Bayley said passionately. "I definitely have a new hobby. And Olivia is such a good teacher. I felt completely safe and in control the whole time."

"Well, thank you," Olivia said, humbled by the compliment. "I'm just glad you enjoyed yourself."

Bayley continued to enthuse about what a great time she'd had while the two women took off their gear and piled it up on the sand next to Seth's.

"And that was only your trial dive," Olivia reminded her. "Since you enjoyed it and proved your competency, we'll charter a boat tomorrow and do another dive, where you'll actually be able to see some cool stuff."

"I honestly can't wait for that," Bayley said.

"Seth, I need to have a break for an hour or so before you and I dive," Olivia said. "Can we carry the gear back up to the house? We can chill on the balcony or something. I could use something to drink."

"Another one of those fruit cocktails would go down nicely," Seth said, realising how thirsty he was after his time relaxing in the sun.

Just over an hour later, after everyone's thirsts had been quenched and Olivia had been able to rest, it was Seth's turn to dive.

"I'm ready if you are, Seth?" Olivia asked, getting up from the table on her balcony.

Seth also got to his feet. "Absolutely. Let's do it."

Bayley had been considering how she might handle this moment ever since her own dive had finished. The chemistry between the two people she was trying to set up had been white hot earlier in the morning, so she didn't want to be there to potentially interfere with her presence, if a moment was possibly going to happen. For that reason, she had decided not to follow them back down to the beach. "Guys, I might stay here if that's okay? I could make some lunch for us all?"

"Would you?" Olivia asked. "That would be great. There are plenty of things to choose from in the kitchen. I had a neighbor stock it up for me yesterday before we arrived, so that we had one less thing to worry about."

"You got it," Bayley said kindly. "Have a great time, guys."

"Thanks," Seth said with a smile.

"See you in an hour then," Olivia said on her way to the door.

A few minutes later, Bayley heard Seth and Olivia walking out onto the beach, having collected their gear and put their wetsuits on. She was safe to eaves drop from up on the balcony, knowing that they couldn't tell she was trying to listen to what they were saying. It actually turned out that she couldn't quite make out the conversation, but the sound of Olivia's laughter did float up to her. Whatever they were talking about, Seth was working his magic with his keen sense of humour. That was definitely a good sign. Bayley felt so happy that they were bonding, and had all of her fingers and toes crossed that something would happen between them sooner rather than later. After all, it was so obvious that they both wanted it.

Down on the beach, Seth put his air cylinder on his back when instructed to by Olivia. It wasn't the easiest task in the world. "This wetsuit is a bit tight on me," he said as an explanation for his awkwardness.

"Yes, I know," Olivia said, very much liking the way the suit contoured to his muscles. "I don't think I've seen anyone look good in a wetsuit before."

Seth froze for a half second at that unexpected compliment that had to be counted as flirting. "I have," he countered, clearly meaning Olivia. "But she looked a lot better in a bikini."

"All in good time," Olivia teased, knowing exactly what he meant. "I'm teaching you scuba, not freediving. Anyway, we had better concentrate on what we're doing." She was reprimanding herself as much as Seth. She was about to be his dive instructor, and that meant there was no room for distractions. His safety was her responsibility.

"Okay, I'm paying attention," Seth promised.

Olivia went through the same set of instructions as she had with Bayley, talking him through all of the equipment and how to use it, explaining the techniques required to dive safely, showing him how to check each other's air supplies and regulators were working, and explaining all of the hand signals that they might need to use to communicate under water.

"Anything you're unsure about? If there is, please say. It's a lot to take in, and it's better to be safe than sorry."

"No, I think I'm good," Seth said seriously.

"Alright then, let's go," Olivia said. They walked side by side down the beach and into the sea. "Okay, Seth. We're going to walk out as far as we can, then when the bottom leaves us, you're going to follow me as I swim out a bit further to deeper water. We're going to go over a couple of things with your breathing, then we're going to dive and see how you handle being underwater for the first time. If you find yourself struggling or panicking at any time, for any reason, signal to me and we'll surface right away, alright?"

Now that the moment to actually dive was at hand, Seth was fully concentrated on his role of trainee, or student. He found himself admiring Olivia as an instructor. She was doing a great job of explaining everything, while at the same time helping him to feel at ease. He wasn't actually nervous about the dive, but he knew that if he had been, he would have had a lot of confidence in her to make sure nothing went wrong. "Go it," he acknowledged.

They walked out further, until Seth felt his feet leave the bottom. He was now treading water rather than standing. It was quite easy to float, he found, even with the gear on. Maybe the fins helped with that, he wondered.

"Time to put our masks on," Olivia instructed, making her own comfortable on her face. Seth did likewise, hoping that it would prove itself to be watertight once he went under. Although Olivia had explained how to clear the mask, he imagined water getting in would be unnerving the first few times. "Now," Olivia went on. "What I want you to do is just float here for a minute and put your regulator in your mouth. Breathing through it will feel a little strange at first."

Doing as she instructed, Seth put his regulator into his mouth and focused himself on trying to breath normally. Only being able to breath through his mouth was an odd feeling, but it wasn't too bad. After a minute or two he took the regulator back out and said, "That's not too bad. I think I've got it."

Olivia nodded. "Good. Now do it again with your face under the water."

Seth did as she ordered, happy to find that the mask she had chosen for him was indeed watertight on his face. That was his biggest concern out of the way, for now at least. He imagined that he wouldn't get through a whole dive without water getting in.

"I'm okay," he announced a couple of minutes later, when he thought he'd probably done enough to pass her test.

"Great," Olivia said with a dazzling smile. "Then we're ready to dive. We're only in relatively shallow water here and there's not much to see. The reason we're diving here is so you can spend some time on the bottom, which gives you the chance to make sure you're comfortable with diving, and gives me the chance to assess your competency. Just remember, we're going to take it slowly this first time, and if you're uncomfortable about anything signal to me and we'll surface straight away."

"Let's do it," Seth replied, feeling his excitement building. Not only was he about to experience his first dive, he was about to see the mermaid in action up close. Why that was such a turn on was still a mystery to him, but he had stopped trying to question it at this point. He waited while Olivia put her regulator in her mouth then disappeared under the water before doing so himself.

As soon as he was completely underwater, Seth knew that he was going to enjoy diving as much as Bayley had, and Olivia obviously did. There was a real weightless sensation to it that he hadn't quite expected. It made him feel at ease, and it also made swimming much easier than it was on the surface or in a pool. He now had a partial explanation as to why Olivia moved so gracefully through the water. Below him, his dive instructor was gliding on her back, looking up at him, her eyes gleaming behind her mask. She gave him the hand signal to ask if he was okay, which he returned to say that he was. Satisfied, she turned over, and with just a few kicks made her way to the bottom. It was only a short glimpse of her in action, but even so, Seth loved it. He was already looking forward to their first dive out in open water the next day.

After they had spent twenty minutes idly swimming around on the sandy bottom, Olivia signalled that it was time for them to surface. Seth hesitated for a moment, wanting to follow behind her, but he saw that she was going to wait for him instead. He made his way to the surface and took his regulator out of his mouth. Olivia surfaced beside him and did the same.

"Did I pass the test?" Seth asked.

Olivia chuckled as she pushed her mask up to the top of her head. "It's not really a test, but yes, you seem perfectly competent to me. I see no reason why we can't dive in deeper waters tomorrow, if you still want to."

"Definitely," Seth said.

"Awesome. Come on, let's get back to the beach."

They swam to shore and took off their gear once they were on the sand. Seth felt incredibly relaxed after the dive, but as he watched Olivia taking off her wetsuit, flicking her soaking wet hair behind her, he felt his body going into overdrive. She turned him on so much that it was bordering on the ridiculous. He literally couldn't make himself wait any longer before making a move on her. He stepped closer to her, so close that she had to look up into his eyes. "Thank you, Olivia. I really enjoyed that," he said softly. He saw in her eyes that she knew what he was really thinking.

"I'm glad," she breathed. "Diving is a lot of fun."

"It was the company that made it special," Seth said.

Olivia knew he was about to kiss her. She felt butterflies in her stomach. "I agree," she said, barely above a whisper.

The kitchen was at the back of Olivia's house, the window overlooking the beach. Bayley had seen her two friends walking back to shore after their dive as she had worked on lunch, and had kept on eye on them, wanting to see if anything happened between them. As soon as she had seen Seth step close to Olivia, she could see that they were going to go for it. The chemistry was obvious even at such a distance.

"Kiss her!" Bayley said, willing Seth on.

They exchanged some words, then Seth leaned down and kissed Olivia. Her hands came up to the back of his head as their kissing became more passionate.

"Yay!" Bayley said, delighted that her matchmaking had paid off.

It could have been two minutes or ten before they pulled apart, as far as Seth was concerned. He had been so lost in the moment that any sense of anything else had completely gone from his mind. He had kissed the woman he knew he had fallen for, and she had kissed him back with every bit as much feeling. This really could lead to something more between them, he knew that now. Confirmation was only seconds away.

"Seth?" Olivia asked, still looking longingly into his eyes.

"What?" he asked gently.

"I don't want you to sleep on that couch tonight."

"I don't want to either," he managed to say before she kissed him again.


	9. Chapter 9

"I'm going to go up to bed now," Olivia said, getting up off the couch.

"Do you still want me to join you?" Seth asked carefully, looking up at her. He figured that the chances of her saying yes were good; they had just spent half an hour in each other's arms on the couch watching TV. Bayley had gone up to bed early, almost certainly for the sole purpose of giving them some private time together. Seth had been first to risk attempting putting an arm around Olivia, and had been delighted when she snuggled against him and returned the gesture instead of rejecting him. He doubted that their night in bed together was going to involve sex as she just didn't seem like the kind of girl to go that far this soon. That was fine with him, though. He didn't just want a cheap, throwaway sexual encounter with Olivia. No, he hoped that whatever this was between them could amount to more than that in time.

Olivia offered her hand to him, indicating that he should get up. After he did so, she said, "I'm worried, Seth."

"About what?" he asked cautiously.

"That I might have given you the wrong idea before, when I said I didn't want you to sleep on the couch tonight. I mean, I don't want you to do that," she stumbled, getting flustered as she tried to make her point.

"If you're thinking I might be expecting sex, I'm not," Seth reassured her, then gave her a light kiss on the forehead. "I'm not the kind of person who rushes into that." At least, not on this occasion, he thought.

"Good, neither am I," Olivia said with obvious relief. "Uh, should we go up then?"

"After you," Seth said with an encouraging smile. He could tell that she was quite nervous, which made him wonder how long it had been since she had been with someone, or at least someone who might mean something to her.

They walked upstairs and into Olivia's bedroom. "Make yourself comfortable, I'll be in the bathroom," she said, hurriedly leaving him to it.

"Bless," Seth whispered to himself after he heard water start running on the bathroom. He knew that whatever the reason for her nerves, he had to make her feel comfortable. Not only did he want there to be something between them, this was her home and her bed. If she couldn't feel comfortable there, where would she?

Seth took off his T-shirt and his socks and put them on the floor beside the bed, on the side furthest from the door. Olivia hadn't said which side she wanted to sleep on, so he figured he was free to choose. He heard the toilet flush, followed by more running water, then she walked back into the room. He saw her hesitate in the doorway for a moment, looking at him standing there in his underwear. Her expression gave her away, conveying that she very much liked what she saw.

"I need to use the bathroom too," Seth said as an explanation for why he wasn't already in bed. "I usually sleep like this. Is that okay?"

"Looks okay to me," Olivia said softly, finding the confidence to flirt from somewhere.

Seth didn't know how to respond to that, so he made for the bathroom. After he had taken care of his business and washed up, he was ready for bed. He walked back into the bedroom, disappointed but not surprised to find Olivia already under the covers. He had still been denied the chance to more of her body up close, much to his frustration. The room was now only lit by the lamp that stood on her nightstand.

"Close the door, please," Olivia said. "I've never been able to sleep with the bedroom door open since I was a kid. Weird, huh?"

"Not at all. If you close the door, you stand a better chance of keeping the monsters out," Seth said as he did what she had asked and walked around to his side of the bed.

Olivia chuckled lightly at his joke and pulled the cover back slightly to invite him into bed. As he got in, she rolled over and turned off the lamp. With that done, she faced him once more. "Seth?" she asked, sounding a little nervous again.

"It's okay," he said gently. "I'm really not looking to rush things. You don't have to feel nervous around me. If you just want us to sleep in the same bed, that's what we'll do."

Olivia was hating herself for coming across like a nervous teenager who hadn't been with a man before. The truth was that she hadn't planned to invite him to share her bed this soon, it had just popped out of her mouth in the heat of the moment on the beach. She was not usually the kind of person who jumped into bed with a guy anything like this quickly, but at the same time, she couldn't deny that she was falling for Seth very rapidly indeed. She reached a decision and said, "I'd like you to hold me. And kiss me."

"I'd like that too," Seth said softly, putting an arm around her and moving slightly closer. Their lips met, and both of them felt the butterflies in their stomachs. There wasn't going to be sex, but in that moment both of them had the sense that by the time they returned to WWE, they would be more than friends, certainly more than colleagues.

"Seth, what happens when we go back to work?" Olivia asked some time later, in a break between their kissing.

"Hopefully I get the chance to take you on a date."

"You will," Olivia promised. "But what I meant was, I think we both know we want this to go further. What do we say to people at work?"

"For a start, nothing. Once we've had a few dates, assuming we do, then we can tell people that we're dating. Trust me, it won't come as a huge surprise. We all spend so much time on the road, relationships between people on the roster are very common."

"I'm relieved to hear that," Olivia said, cuddling up to him a bit more. "I wouldn't want people judging me, or should I say, us."

"They won't," Seth assured her. "They'll be happy for us."

That was already true of one colleague. In the next room, Bayley had heard Olivia and Seth both walk up the stairs and heard them talking, despite their attempts to be quiet. She had then heard two people use the bathroom, followed by the bedroom door closing. No one had gone back downstairs. Bayley had been willing her two friends on the whole time they had been in Hawaii, and now things were happening between them. It made her feel so happy, and glad that she had succeeded in her role as matchmaker.

* * *

"Hey," Bayley said casually when Seth walked down the stairs the next morning. She had already decided not to pass comment on the fact that he obviously hadn't slept on the couch, since she was sitting on it. If he wanted to discuss it, that was his decision.

"Hey," Seth replied, yawning. "Anything good for breakfast? Is there coffee?" He walked across the open plan room to the kitchen.

"There's coffee if you make it," Bayley said, rolling her eyes at him. "I thought we might go out for breakfast. Olivia only seems to have healthy stuff and I feel like something more this morning."

"Right," Seth mumbled.

He returned to the living area shortly, coffee cup in hand, and sat down next to Bayley, who was working on her own drink. "Sleep okay?" she asked.

"Not bad. Olivia's in the shower," Seth said, feeling the need to explain her absence. "Needless to say, I slept in her room. We didn't, uh, you know."

"That's good, on both counts," Bayley said, treading carefully. "I don't think she's the kind of girl to rush into things. But I'm really happy that you guys are making progress. It's been obvious almost from minute one that you both had feelings for each other."

"Thanks, Bay. But do me a favour, don't talk about this with Olivia. I don't want her to start feeling uncomfortable. She's been really kind to invite us out here and teach us how to dive..."

"I understand," Bayley cut in. "I won't talk to her about it unless she brings it up."

They sat in a companionable silence for a while, allowing the caffeine to fight off the last vestiges of sleep. "Looking forward to this afternoon?" Seth asked eventually, thinking about their first real dive in open water.

"Yeah, it's going to be so much fun," Bayley said excitedly. "I enjoyed it more yesterday than I even imagined I would, and there wasn't even anything interesting to see down there."

"You're right. It won't be long until we're freediving with sharks like Olivia does."

Bayley grimaced at that idea. "Speak for yourself. I'm going nowhere near a shark, or any other kind of fish that's bigger than I am."

The sound of Olivia's laughter came from the stairs. "It's possible to freedive without sharks around," she said. "It's not an easy thing to learn to do though. I'd recommend getting used to scuba first, then progressing to freediving if you want to try it."

"Sign me up," Seth said without pause. "I want to get as good at this stuff as you are."

"That'll take you a lot of time and study," Olivia replied without even a hint of arrogance as she walked over and sat on the arm of the couch beside him. "I've been diving since I was a kid, and I've done a lot of courses to help me get better at it over the years. You'll need to go through some of that too, if you want diving to become a serious hobby for you. It's a lot more work than you might imagine to pass a course; there's quite a bit of e-learning involved, as well at the practical tests."

"I am serious about it. Maybe you can help me look into what's involved in some of the courses when we're back on the road and I can see if I want to do one. How exactly does it all work?"

"Well, the first one you would need to do is your basic open water diver course," Olivia explained. "As I said, there's an e-learning aspect to it that you would need to pass first. Once you've got your certificate for that, you can move on to the practical learning and examination with an instructor."

"Like you," Seth added.

"Like me," Olivia agreed with a sweet little grin that made Seth's heart skip a beat. Then, before the moment could linger, she said, "What's the plan for breakfast?"

Bayley said, "I thought we might go out and get something, if there's somewhere local you can recommend? No offense, but I fancy something a bit more filling than what you have in the kitchen."

"No offense taken at all," Olivia said comfortably. "I'm not much of a breakfast person, but I know you guys are. Actually, I might even join you in having something. It's not a bad idea to have a good feed, since we've got an afternoon of diving ahead of us, and I'll be going down there twice."

"Sounds like we have a plan," Seth grinned, unsure which he was looking forward to most: filling his stomach or diving with Olivia, the sexy mermaid. The images of her freediving in her pink bikini were running through his head again.

"I'll just run up to the bathroom before we go," Bayley said, getting up of the couch and heading for the stairs.

Once they had some privacy, Seth decided to reveal what he had been thinking. There was no real harm in it, since he had already let slip the fact that he had been Instagram stalking, and he thought that Olivia would probably like the comparison. "I really like the way you look when you swim underwater," he said quietly, looking her in the eyes. "Honestly, I was lost the first time you showed Dean and I that video of you freediving with the shark. You remind me of a mermaid, the way you're so graceful in the water."

"Aww, that's really sweet," Olivia said, blushing. "I've never been called a mermaid before."

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah," she decided with another one of those smiles.

"Maybe WWE could use it as a nickname for you?" Seth blurted out, not sure where the idea had even come from. "You know, how they call me the architect, Dean's the lunatic fringe, that kind of thing."

"Hmm," Olivia said skeptically. "I don't think mermaid really conveys the right message for my character. Great white shark, maybe," she giggled.

Seth's eyes lit up. "You know, that's not a bad idea at all. Like you said, it does fit your character, or at least it will once more things have happened to establish the character with the fans. Plus you're blonde. That seems to make the great part make more sense. I could actually see that name working, if Hunter went for it. We could pitch it to him."

Olivia took hold of the silver necklace she was wearing and showed him the pendant. It was a shark, a fact which didn't surprise Seth at all. "This would fit, too," she said. "They could make a point of showing it, somehow."

"That's a really nice necklace," Seth said, admiring it. For a moment he had wondered how he hadn't seen it before, but then he realised that he hadn't as yet seen her in an outfit that would have been revealing enough to show off the pendant. "But yes, it's a good idea for something they might work in for your character. We should definitely take this to Hunter on Monday night."

"Olivia Ramsey, the great white shark," she said thoughtfully, imagining one of the commentary team referring to her in that manner. "Yeah, I really do like that."


End file.
